SELF - REALIZATION.

I was living on an island in Spain and was in no way looking for a spiritual adventure, even though I had explored new age thoughts for a while and seen how all that always kept me moving forward and onward. I was living and working at a beautiful spiritual meditation retreat center on this island. A spiritual teacher was invited to come and stay with us there for three weeks and she would be offering satsang every day. All this was entirely foreign and unfamiliar to me but I partook like every one else and heard mentioned the name of another teacher of similar kind in the U.S. This name rang a bell loudly in me and I wanted to meet her and then I forgot all about it, happy to be on a tropical island.

My goal and dream at the time was to go and live and work on Hawaii. I soon arrived on Maui and while sitting at a coffee shop I overheard a conversation at the table next to me about the teacher whose name had rang a bell. I introduced myself to these people next to me and found out that this teacher had arrived on the island a few days earlier and I got invited to a private satsang that evening. From then on I did what everyone else on the island did and frequented public satsang at least twice a week for a couple of months. I first tried to ask the teacher about love and she abruptly interrupted me and completely dismissed my question and told me that that was for sure not my question. She said my question was “who am I ?”. Confused and confounded I then had to wait until the next meeting since we were now out of time for more questions or dialog.

By the next meeting I thought I had figured something out and told the teacher about my insight and she immediately directed my attention, by asking me questions and more questions, directly into the Self. My awareness and my attention were completely There and I could see It All. I Realized that That is what was I. It was simple and immediate and also sort of a tiny, little shock as well. I thought it was so easy. I remembered that my awareness had rested in the peaceful and empty nothingness of That many times before, as a child and while growing up. It seemed so natural and it was, totally natural. In a funny way I assumed shortly after that moment that I now would see everything very differently. After satsang I drove my car to a cliff and went out and sat on a bluff overlooking the ocean. I wanted to take a moment to be by myself. I imagined that I now would be able to reach out with my hand and literally touch the sky or make the butterflies stop flying just with my mind or that I would feel really different. Well, I didn't. It was January, 1995.

Twice more I dialogued with the teacher during satsang only to be brought right back to the awareness of That and to rest in It in her presence and we had many laughs over nothing with the whole group. She asked me then to leave satsang, to not come back to satsang and to go out into the world and live satsang. I had no idea what she meant by that. I had so many questions still. I didn’t think it could be that easy. I felt no different. I knew that people spent years trying to get this and some people now also looked at me with a funny look on their faces and came up and stared at me and to say hello as I was sitting with friends at my favorite coffee place. I was very confused.

I real shift took place where all of a sudden friends and acquaintances in my community loved to be around me and loved me so much more and so much more openly and freely. Some wanted to be right next to me to get the energy they said I exuded. I did not know what so ever what this was all about. I moved to Los Angeles and after some time of settling in I found a strong new age community around the Hollywood / Sherman Oaks area. At this time I was touched my Ammachi, I should mention. During that time I was intensely happy and would have, what I called, bliss attacks, where I would laugh uncontrollably for 20 minutes straight, or longer. I received a lot of attention for energies of sweetness and love that people said came from me. People told me that a certain fragrance would fill up the room or the car when I slept or at other times when I was oblivious and at ease. All this attention and still more of it ended up really disturbing and distressing me and I ended up withdrawing from everyone and this particular social community. I could not for the life of me understand why all this should be happening to me. I was very uncomfortable with the attention.

I entered a period of several years where I was faced with everything I had ever done to another person in romantic relationships. It was brutal, devastating, hard. A violent fire burned me day and night, mind, body and emotions. I knew I was transforming but didn't know how or why or why it had to be so intense and forceful. To say it was painful is to totally minimize the experience. I didn't know it at the time, not until it was all over, that I had, through this fire, faced and burned karma. I couldn't work, I couldn't eat, I couldn't think sensible thoughts, I couldn't do anything, my health seriously declined and I don't think I remained entirely sane.

Then all of a sudden it came to an end. The fire stopped burning and I exited the relationship I was in and everything began to flow smoothly again. The Light grew ever stronger, ate up my whole life and consumed me. All I could do was go with it. All I have ever been able to do, when it comes to all this stuff, is to just go with it.