Have you ever observed the distinctive and unique scents associated with various saints or enlightened Masters? Devotees attuned to Mother Mary often describe her divine fragrance as reminiscent of roses, while followers of Shirdi Sai Baba associate him with the delicate scent of jasmine flowers. The world is replete with diverse experiences linked to the divine, many of which involve encounters with heavenly fragrances.
Imagine the profound challenge of crafting a fragrance for God -one that encapsulates divine consciousness not only in its olfactory notes but also in its packaging. In this exclusive interview, we delve into an extraordinary narrative of the profound connection between a Guru and disciple, resulting in the creation of a fragrance dedicated to God. Join us as we unveil the captivating story behind this endeavor, a testament to the intricate interplay of spirituality and the senses.
The Awakening Times (TAT): Can you share how you met Mohanji?
Dominic Venton (DV): Absolutely. I have been interested in the great Indian Masters for a few years now. My favorite practice is to read about their lives – it reminds me that liberation is real and achievable for us all. When I stumbled across Shirdi Sai Baba, I automatically felt a strong connection. Something about him just resonated very deeply with me. I then had two dreams with him. In the first, I prostrated at his feet and he said, with a knowing smile, “Ah, this one wants it all.” I remember feeling so happy to be there with him – like I was completely safe, a bit like when I was a child with my loving grandfather but somehow more sacred. He asked me to fetch him a glass of water and then I woke up. In the second dream I had asked God before going to bed if it was Sai Baba or Christ that I should follow. Sure enough Sai Baba appeared to me – this time happily dancing at the front of a conga line at a party! He pulled me out of line and put my hands on his shoulders. I woke up laughing.
These dreams did two things for me. First, they confirmed that Sai Baba’s was the path that I came here to follow. And second, they showed me how spirituality doesn’t need to be so serious. Oftentimes in spirituality, we create these very rigid rules with strict ideas of what it should be. I can definitely be very hard on myself at times. Ironically, on the rare occasions that I have touched the higher realms it always feels light, loving, expansive, spacious and flowing, oftentimes playful and never heavy or contracting.
One more interesting little anecdote came when I went for a series of healings to a very elevated Brazilian ‘Mae de Santo’ from the African Umbanda tradition. She said at the end, “by the way who is the old man that’s always with you – The Preto-Velho?”. I said I had no idea, so I looked up what Preto Velho meant and I found a picture of a dark skinned, elderly man with a white beard and a pipe, sitting with one leg crossed over the other that looked exactly like Shirdi Sai Baba. This really confirmed the universality of all paths to me. Plus, I now am able to imagine Sai Baba with me all of the time which is really heart warming.
Eventually I came across a book about Advahoota Nadananda and in that book I read about a living master called Mohanji.
TAT: How did you find that book?
DV: Honestly, the more random the book, the more interested I am. It’s probably just my ego but I love to find out about the Masters that no one else knows about! Regarding Mohanji, I should mention that no living master, or guru, has ever captured my attention before. But in this case I was curious, so I looked online and I saw Mohanji feeding some smiling children while wearing a Shirdi Sai Baba T-shirt. There was something about his humility which landed with me. It was obvious that he was ambivalent about how people perceived him. Again, despite his stature he was wearing a t-shirt with another Master on the front. I followed his social media, and a lot of the things he said deeply resonated – he seemed to verbalize what I had intuitively understood and applied in my own life for years. Almost like he’d been there guiding me the whole time.
So, from there, I spoke to my wife, Ana, who was probably tired of me talking about Indian Saints and gurus and all this stuff, and I said, listen, there’s a retreat in India in a place called Puri and I think I’d like to go. As we live in Brazil, with a three-year old child and at that time we were renovating and moving into a new house, this was a big ask. She said “I think you should go”. Thank God she’s very supportive.
TAT: And how was your experience, meeting Mohanji for the first time?
DV: Well, in the opening satsang I’ll admit that I felt a little apprehensive. I suppose because I was a stranger to the scene and everyone else seemed to be very much at home. When Mohanji eventually walked out, something definitely shifted in me, though. This was my first time experiencing anyone of his magnitude and when he looked at me, something definitely shifted inside. It’s hard to put into words but I immediately liked him. His energy was a rare mix of humility with this extreme power. The kind of person we all wish was in political power – like a true, completely selfless King. His chair was like a throne and there was no doubt that he belonged right there.
Anyway, he started answering questions in a relaxed, confident tone without any affectation. His answers all landed for me – we definitely saw the world and reality in the same way. Eventually, I felt the desire to ask him a question. He answered, looking me dead in the eye and it was like a tractor beam. I had never encountered an energy exchange like that. I don’t have a reference to compare it to, but something was tangibly shifting inside me – like jigsaw pieces being moved around and put into place. It also felt like he could see everything I’ve ever done, but there was no judgment, as if none of that was important. What a relief!
On the third day, I woke up to meditate but I was distracted. I was having an amazing time, but I wasn’t sure how to reconcile my busy life on the other side of the planet with this deep connection with Mohanji and India. So, I resolved to myself that I would do whatever I could to sit down with him one-on-one. As I was crossing the road to the venue I saw him standing outside with a little crowd around him. He was facing me, looking me dead in the eye, with his arms open. And I was thinking, well, this is odd because I hadn’t called his attention. As I approached, he gave me a big hug, thanked me for a perfume I had brought as a gift, and said: “We should meet tonight”. In that moment, something very deep within me clicked – there was an acknowledgement that I was finally calibrating with a bigger plan. It felt great to get some confirmation that those countless hours of meditation and practice had actually been doing something!
When I went in to meet Mohanji that evening he was sitting on an armchair wearing casual gym clothes. He asked me to sit next to him. As soon as I sat down I could feel his crazily powerful energy, my hand was shaking almost uncontrollably and I struggled to construct thoughts. When he was talking, I could feel him working on me – like cogs were moving inside me that I’d never felt before. I remember thinking how cool this guy was – sitting there in a tank top, chatting with me about this and that while working on heaven knows how many interdimensional planes. At the end of the meeting he asked me what I thought of his perfume. As I’m a partner in a luxury fragrance brand I know a little bit about the subject and said that I could think of some better options. He said, OK – great. He gave me a big hug and I left feeling amazing.
Cut to the next day and I’m sitting talking with Lina, one of Mohanji’s closest devotees. She’s deeply connected to Mohanji and carries a very special energy, so I was curious to hear her thoughts on my meeting the night before. When I mentioned him showing me his fragrance she said, “I don’t suppose you have an unrealised desire to make a perfume, do you?” It occurred to me that, while through my work I’ve been responsible for some of the creative behind our launches, I’ve been craving creative freedom for some time. She suggested that maybe I should make a fragrance for Mohanji. At the end of the next satsang, I asked him if it was OK if I worked on a fragrance concept for him. He excitedly said, “Of course, the Mohanji fragrance, right?” as if the project was already very much happening!
In one of his talks, Mohanji explained that all any of us have to offer are the skills, experience, lessons and assets that we’ve accumulated in this lifetime – that’s our stockpile from which to serve. Looking at my life I thought, well I’ve definitely been given the skill and experience to make a beautiful fragrance. So, I started questioning how a Mohanji fragrance would be. I thought about what Mohanji represents for me. What does being in his presence feel like? Which perfumery materials embody that feeling? What does the journey of the scent and packaging look like? Which colours, themes and symbols ‘fit’? What is Mohanji?
TAT: That’s quite the first meeting and quite the challenge you have set yourself. Do you think it’s possible to encapsulate the divine into a fragrance?
DV: I do. In my opinion, along with poetry and song, perfumery is the closest creative expression that we have to represent the divine. The root of the word ‘perfume’ actually comes from the Latin words “per fumum”, literally meaning “through the smoke”, as in ancient times, priests, shamans and mystics would light precious woods, resins and incenses, believing that the column of smoke that resulted would connect earth to the heavenly realms – it was considered the perfect offering. Relatedly in most, if not all, spiritual traditions there is the practice of burning sacred materials for the purification of one’s energy field, with the high vibration of the resulting smoke deterring any lower or denser astral energies. We see this in Navajo culture with white sage, in Amazonian shamanism with palo santo, in Islam with the burning of Bakhoor, with the Mayans through copal and in the East with sandalwood, frankincense, and sambrani (benzoin), among others. Of course frankincense and myrrh were famously given by the three Magis to a new born Jesus – more valuable at the time than gold.
TAT: Interesting, do you have a name for Mohanji’s fragrance yet?
DV: It will be called “The Essence of Mohanji” – we hope we are able to do that title justice!
TAT: It sounds great, and what is your creative inspiration?
DV: In terms of specific inspiration, I had a clear vision to work from. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking of a scene involving Mohanji sitting on the terrace of an ancient Indian temple, nestled high in the jungle lined hills in South India, looking out over the ocean. The wearer of the fragrance is sitting next to him – just the two of them. The feeling is that very spacious, exciting, pre-dawn moment. Like when you go on vacation and you get up early to watch the sunset before everyone else is awake, and you’re completely at ease – earthly problems have no place at that time – just carefree presence as you watch the sun slowly rise, bringing all the exciting possibilities of a new day.
Back to our scene, and as you sit on that terrace, you feel the orange glow of the sun starting to warm the inky blue expanse of space. Calling you back into your body, a beautiful scent of orange blossom, iris and jasmine drift past your nose, carried on the ocean breeze from the flowers in the temple gardens. Behind you an elderly priest is just starting with his pooja. Mohanji’s respects and loves him deeply as his devotion is so pure. The sandalwood, frankincense and amber that he’s lighting smell warm, sacred and comforting.
Under-scoring these sacred essences is a grounding, cooling, earthy combination of vetiver root and patchouli – the smell of foliage and wet earth as the fresh dew falls on the jungle floor. Finally there is a background feeling of the dhuni, the sacred fire that’s been burning for generations, warming the terrace and providing a comforting, familiar smell. This is Mohanji’s tradition, speaking through the ages.
TAT: Wow, that sounds amazing. Are there any other inspirations or materials that you’d like to mention?
DV: Well, regarding key olfactive themes, I knew from the first moment that sandalwood would be the story. It is one of the most costly raw materials on earth, with it taking up to 50 years for a tree to mature and another 10 to 20 years to dry it. It is said that sandalwood farmers are wonderful examples to follow as they plant, nurture and protect their trees in the knowledge that they will never personally profit from them. It is this high grade of sandalwood that was traditionally used in the most important hindu and buddhist temples. One of the things I love about this material is the warm, creamy note – it has an enveloping, comforting feel to it, like a cashmere blanket or the embrace of a loved one.
To convey the universality of Mohanji’s message and consciousness we sourced a plethora of sacred materials from each corner of the world, representing each of the directions and also each of the five elements that make up our reality. To achieve this, while capturing that magical scene at the temple, the perfumers have used the finest bergamot fruits from Calabria, Italy, with ultra rare jasmine from the South of France, frankincense from Oman, geranium from China, sage from the Balkans, cedarwood from Virginia, maté from Brazil, Orris from Tuscany, Amyris from Haiti, Venezuelan tonka beans, vanilla bourbon from Madagascar and Vetiver from Java, among many others.
Additionally, I wanted for the scent to evolve, much like our lives, starting with the bright, citrusy energy of youth, moving into the floral romances of our 20s and 30s, before melowing with time into a warm, sattvic, soft finish – the feeling of a comforting hug from a loved one – again encapsulating Mohanji’s energy.
TAT: Beautiful. What about the perfumer – who will make this olfactive masterpiece?
DV: We had four different perfumers working on submissions for “The Essence of Mohanji”, each from the oldest, most highly regarded fragrance compounder in the world, called Robertet, headquartered in the South of France. Founded in the 1800’s they are considered the Rolls Royce of fragrance houses, specializing in rare natural materials. We are now down to just one perfumer and she is sending her latest submission as we speak. It is smelling amazing already so I’m confident this one will be it! Let’s see – it has to be perfect, of course!
TAT: We all can’t wait to smell it! And how about the packaging? Is there a specific theme to this too?
DV: Absolutely. For the design work and packaging we decided to work with Mark from The Narrative creative agency in London. It was an interesting first meeting… I said, listen we’ve got a new project which is a bit different to the other things you’ve worked on. As an industry leading creative, he’s worked on projects for Paul Smith, Fiorrucci and on the award winning Fornasetti home fragrance collection. Pen and paper in hand he excitedly asked, “amazing – tell me more” I replied, “I don’t really know how to put this, but the brief is basically to create a fragrance for God.” No pressure.
Always one for a creative challenge, Mark loved the idea. I could also see that something deep within him had been activated, as if this plan had been written in stone a long, long time ago. He immediately started buying books on Vastu architecture and sacred geometry, going deep into his research.
Working closely together we’ve come with the concept of the journey within – the ultimate hero’s journey from the mind to the heart, the ego to the soul or as Mohanji famously puts it, the unit to the universe. As a result there are various layers to the packaging. Employing the vastu architectural principles mentioned earlier, much like a Hindu temple, you go through various padas, or levels, each one symbolic of the journey into the Self, until you get to the sanctum sanctorum in the middle. All of the references tie back into some aspect of Mohanji. I won’t give you specifics, as I’d like for it to be a surprise, but there are certain tangible parts to Mohanji’s experience on planet Earth that many of us think of when we think of him. They’re incorporated into this journey, and I believe it is very, very special.
TAT: How has it been working on the project?
DV: It’s interesting, I have found that working on projects for Mohanji is like I imagine it might be to fly a supersonic fighter jet. Everything clicks fast, but there is no time to think – the trick is to simply take action and trust your intuition, training and experience. Just take steps forward with faith, and the resources, people and creative inspiration seem to fall automatically into place. It’s almost like you’re finally in the right place; you’re finally doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and it just flows. That’s not to say that there aren’t challenges – but I’m learning that when we surrender the results over to Mohanji, the best possible results – ones that you might not ever have anticipated – tend to materialize.
TAT: Can you share about that communication that you have with Mohanji while discussing the perfume and the input he gave?
DV: I was surprised at how thorough his input was, actually. He was very open and generous with his time.
When you’re creating a fragrance, what you really want to do is get to know the person. I learned this, and everything else I know about fragrance, from my wonderful business partner Roja Dove. He has a truly encyclopedic knowledge on fragrance. So, it’s much more important to know the person, their story and their preferences in life, than it is to know their opinion on certain materials. The reason is that people intellectually believe that they know what rose, vanilla or jasmine smell like. But in a perfumery setting where these materials exist at a very high grade, and are blended with multiple others to achieve specific effects, people generally don’t have the first clue how they smell! Also, we have certain biases that society and our conditioning have given us. Men normally don’t feel comfortable saying they like jasmine, for instance, even if they do know what super high perfumery grade jasmine absolute actually smells like, which again is highly unlikely.
So, it’s all about getting to know the person. For example, if you grew up in a house which had a beautiful rose garden and you played around the roses with lots of happy memories there, then it’s quite likely that because of that positive subconscious association, if I give you a fragrance with rose in it, you’ll like it. It’s why most people like vanilla in fragrances – we grew up looking forward to sweet treats like vanilla sponge cake as children.
Conversely, if you’ve had an ex partner that wore fragrance with a lot of rose in it, and they broke your heart, or they behave badly in the relationship, and I give you a scent with rose in it, you’ll most likely not like it. This is because our sense of smell is designed primarily to help keep us safe. As an example, I’m sure that you probably don’t know what your house or apartment smells like, right? Then you go away for a holiday, you come back after a month and you walk in, and you can smell your apartment again. Why is that? Well, it’s because you don’t need to smell it once your mind is comfortable that there’s no danger. However, once you’ve been away for a while your brain’s trying to work out whether the environment is safe or not, as it is once again new.
So, I asked Mohanji a series of quite probing questions and he was very thorough in his responses. I’ll give you some examples: he likes Spring as a season. He prefers the beach to the mountains, and he prefers the forest to the desert. He doesn’t like things that are overly sweet, but equally doesn’t like things that are overly dry or bitter. He likes oranges and mangoes, and prefers tea to coffee. He doesn’t like anything too strong as he is so sensitive. His earliest scent memory was going to a temple in India where they were burning sandalwood incense. This of course was music to my ears as I already had the sandalwood theme and temple scene firmly in mind.
I have the feeling that he will respond very well to the fragrance when it’s finished, because it has some of his favorite things in it. He’s also been wearing some fragrances from the brand that I’m involved in, and I’ve been able to learn a bit from the sorts of fragrances that he’s picked out from our collection.
TAT: Thank you so much. It’s been really beautiful to listen to your stories and your experience. Is there anything else you’d like to say about this amazing project?
DV: Well it’s obviously very personal to me. I really feel that I have been given the opportunity to serve God directly through my guru and our lineage. This is such a rare and sacred task that I’m taking it very seriously, giving it everything I’ve got. As an offering from myself to God, nature, beauty and the highest quality were all paramount, representing the peerless Dattatreya, Raja yoga lineage from which Mohanji hails.
To give an example of this, the orris butter that we are using is from Tuscany as this is the finest example in the world. It takes three to five years to cultivate and prepare the rhizome of the Iris flowers to be able to produce the ‘butter’, and the resulting product can cost three times the price of gold per kilo. The bergamot from Calabria is known as green gold, as this distinctive fruit can only be grown in this small part of Italy and only after favorable weather conditions. Again the sandalwood we are using takes a lifetime to grow and harvest, and the jasmine is from Grasse in the South of France – it is known as the King of the floral notes. It takes over one million flowers, picked by hand in the middle of the night to produce just a single kilo of oil. It again can cost several times the price of pure gold. Nothing but the best for Mohanji!
TAT: Wow. And where will we be able to buy the fragrance?
DV: To begin with only at the Mohanji MCBs but by 2025 on Mohanji.org and in time we plan to distribute it into a select group of luxury perfumeries and concept stores around the world.
TAT: Thank you, we can’t wait to see and smell it. Do you have anything else exciting on the horizon?
In terms of the future, I am in the process of helping to set up the Mohanji Association, Brazil. There are some very exciting plans on the horizon for Brazil, but it’s probably best not to share the details until they are fully confirmed.
TAT: Thank you so much for your time.
DV: My absolute pleasure – thank you for your time and selfless service in this wonderful magazine. Jai Mohanji!
