“My life has lot’s of chapters. The first chapter began in 1973 in Perth where I was born in Subiaco Hospital. I was the youngest of 5 kids. All the other kids were 2 years apart and then I came along 6 years later. I spent the first 10 years of my life in Perth where my mum was like 3rd generation. She came from a “ nice”, middle class home and she told me her parents had hopes she would marry a sensible Perth boy who was an accountant or a businessman [like her Dad]. Instead she fell in love with an artist from London through her theatre group, who became my Dad.
Mum and Dad split up when I was 2 after 13 years of marriage. I think things were kind of on the rocks with them before I was born. It was a traumatic time for the family. Dad was an alcoholic at that time and loved to socialise, he was always the life of the party. Mum was getting into Yoga and living a clean and healthy life. All the other kids were born in England and Mum had studied Yoga with Iyengar in London. She was really inspired by him. When they came back to live in Australia and had me, she was looking for a Yoga community to support her.
Dad was in the film industry. He was a Bohemian, a theatre actor and a film maker. He worked with the BBC in England and made a lot of documentaries over there. Dad was a workaholic. Mum’s outlet was to find her Yoga practice. Mum joined an organisation that was focused on Indian practices and they had a Guru. Mum, in an attempt to leave my Dad actually moved to this community in the hills of Perth. They were called Ananda Marga. She changed all our names without telling Dad. My birth name is Karenza so I’ve gone back to that. I became Kiran from age 2 to 30, which is a Sanskrit name [meaning “ray of light”] and all my brothers and sisters were given these spiritual names.
My sister told me the story of when I was only 2 we came home one day from the community and my sister was bathing me as she was 10 years older. She said – “Come on Kiran, let’s get out of the bath”. Dad said – “What are you calling her?” She said – “That’s her name now. Mum said – We all have new names.” Dad lost it. That was probably the last straw. They had quite an ugly break up.
Mum took all of us and retreated to the community. We lived with lot’s of family in this hippy community for about a year and then Mum met a younger man there who she fell in love with. He agreed to marry her. He was 6 years younger and she had 5 kids. He was my Stepdad for 20 years and he did his best. He took us all on.
A year after they got together the most traumatic thing in my family history happened. My oldest brother Caedie who was 15 was distraught that he wasn’t with our Dad. He could not cope with our new stepdad. They didn’t get along. He was getting into drugs and alcohol and he stole a car with his mates. They crashed the car and he died. That was on my Mum’s birthday.
Mum just wasn’t coping. She still had 4 kids to look after. I was only 3 at that time. She bottled up her grief and became very focused on the spiritual group she was in. She would meditate 3 times a day and it was a way of switching off and she just wasn’t really present after that. My older sister was like my second mum. She became the one that was emotionally there for me. Her birth name was Zazie but she changed her name to Satya. We just went on as a family but Satya and my brother were only 2 years apart so they were very close, and the trauma of this plus dad leaving and needing to care for us younger kids affected her deeply.
We were sort of taken from one rental to another with Mum and my stepdad. Dad didn’t cope with the death of Caedie and he moved back to England so he separated from us all together. He had another son and daughter in England.
My 3 brothers and sisters who were left embraced the Ananda Marga but I didn’t so I was kind of the black sheep of the family. I’ve got a bit of my Mum and Dad in me. I’m a film maker and a yoga teacher as well. I grew up with yoga and meditation as part of our daily practice so I know that’s a part of my truth but I’m very mistrustful of groups and organisations that try and separate you from the rest of community with their dogma. My alarm bells go off.
The hub of this organisation, the Margi’s, was happening in Sydney in the 70’s and 80’s so they decided we would move to Sydney to be closer to the action. The Margi’s believed they were going to revolutionise the world with their ideology but it was pretty culty and sexist from my perspective. They packed me off to live on a community in Stanthorpe by myself [with an American Margi family] when I was 10 years old. I’m resentful of my Mum for doing this but she thought that was the best thing to do while they sorted their new life in Sydney. There was a Margi school in Stanthorpe that needed numbers to get started so lots of the Margi kids were sent there. I lived on this remote community near Stanthorpe with a lot of Margi families, Monks and Nuns. I was very traumatised by being removed from my family and circle of friends in Perth. But we were told that “we were all one Universal family” constantly. While I was there my eldest sister decided tp become a Nun in the organisation so she trained in Nepal and India before being sent overseas to work. She was only 19 and then my second sister followed in the same footsteps.They effectively cut me off, saying that everyone was their sister and brother now, not just me. After that, Margi’s kept asking me – “Are you going to become a Nun like your sisters?” No way, not me!
After a year in Stanthorpe I moved to Sydney to join Mum and my Step-Dad. That was a good time because I went to a great Public School in Woollahra with teachers who really saw me. They were my best schooling years, I discovered there that I loved to write and was good at it.
They decided to join another community on the Sunshine Coast so just when I was about to go to a good high school we moved again to the country to start this community. We lived in a caravan and a shed for a few years. No running water or toilet while they were building. Everything was about building the organisation, nothing about the family unit being important.”
Mum and Dad split up when I was 2 after 13 years of marriage. I think things were kind of on the rocks with them before I was born. It was a traumatic time for the family. Dad was an alcoholic at that time and loved to socialise, he was always the life of the party. Mum was getting into Yoga and living a clean and healthy life. All the other kids were born in England and Mum had studied Yoga with Iyengar in London. She was really inspired by him. When they came back to live in Australia and had me, she was looking for a Yoga community to support her.
Dad was in the film industry. He was a Bohemian, a theatre actor and a film maker. He worked with the BBC in England and made a lot of documentaries over there. Dad was a workaholic. Mum’s outlet was to find her Yoga practice. Mum joined an organisation that was focused on Indian practices and they had a Guru. Mum, in an attempt to leave my Dad actually moved to this community in the hills of Perth. They were called Ananda Marga. She changed all our names without telling Dad. My birth name is Karenza so I’ve gone back to that. I became Kiran from age 2 to 30, which is a Sanskrit name [meaning “ray of light”] and all my brothers and sisters were given these spiritual names.
My sister told me the story of when I was only 2 we came home one day from the community and my sister was bathing me as she was 10 years older. She said – “Come on Kiran, let’s get out of the bath”. Dad said – “What are you calling her?” She said – “That’s her name now. Mum said – We all have new names.” Dad lost it. That was probably the last straw. They had quite an ugly break up.
Mum took all of us and retreated to the community. We lived with lot’s of family in this hippy community for about a year and then Mum met a younger man there who she fell in love with. He agreed to marry her. He was 6 years younger and she had 5 kids. He was my Stepdad for 20 years and he did his best. He took us all on.
A year after they got together the most traumatic thing in my family history happened. My oldest brother Caedie who was 15 was distraught that he wasn’t with our Dad. He could not cope with our new stepdad. They didn’t get along. He was getting into drugs and alcohol and he stole a car with his mates. They crashed the car and he died. That was on my Mum’s birthday.
Mum just wasn’t coping. She still had 4 kids to look after. I was only 3 at that time. She bottled up her grief and became very focused on the spiritual group she was in. She would meditate 3 times a day and it was a way of switching off and she just wasn’t really present after that. My older sister was like my second mum. She became the one that was emotionally there for me. Her birth name was Zazie but she changed her name to Satya. We just went on as a family but Satya and my brother were only 2 years apart so they were very close, and the trauma of this plus dad leaving and needing to care for us younger kids affected her deeply.
We were sort of taken from one rental to another with Mum and my stepdad. Dad didn’t cope with the death of Caedie and he moved back to England so he separated from us all together. He had another son and daughter in England.
My 3 brothers and sisters who were left embraced the Ananda Marga but I didn’t so I was kind of the black sheep of the family. I’ve got a bit of my Mum and Dad in me. I’m a film maker and a yoga teacher as well. I grew up with yoga and meditation as part of our daily practice so I know that’s a part of my truth but I’m very mistrustful of groups and organisations that try and separate you from the rest of community with their dogma. My alarm bells go off.
The hub of this organisation, the Margi’s, was happening in Sydney in the 70’s and 80’s so they decided we would move to Sydney to be closer to the action. The Margi’s believed they were going to revolutionise the world with their ideology but it was pretty culty and sexist from my perspective. They packed me off to live on a community in Stanthorpe by myself [with an American Margi family] when I was 10 years old. I’m resentful of my Mum for doing this but she thought that was the best thing to do while they sorted their new life in Sydney. There was a Margi school in Stanthorpe that needed numbers to get started so lots of the Margi kids were sent there. I lived on this remote community near Stanthorpe with a lot of Margi families, Monks and Nuns. I was very traumatised by being removed from my family and circle of friends in Perth. But we were told that “we were all one Universal family” constantly. While I was there my eldest sister decided tp become a Nun in the organisation so she trained in Nepal and India before being sent overseas to work. She was only 19 and then my second sister followed in the same footsteps.They effectively cut me off, saying that everyone was their sister and brother now, not just me. After that, Margi’s kept asking me – “Are you going to become a Nun like your sisters?” No way, not me!
After a year in Stanthorpe I moved to Sydney to join Mum and my Step-Dad. That was a good time because I went to a great Public School in Woollahra with teachers who really saw me. They were my best schooling years, I discovered there that I loved to write and was good at it.
They decided to join another community on the Sunshine Coast so just when I was about to go to a good high school we moved again to the country to start this community. We lived in a caravan and a shed for a few years. No running water or toilet while they were building. Everything was about building the organisation, nothing about the family unit being important.”