Who am I?

I don't want to live in an abandoned building anymore. I want a home. I'm so tired of constantly healing, I just want to be whole. I don't want to be going through anything anymore, I want to just be. I want to be okay. There is no safe haven here. I can't escape. Everyone room is under construction, there are people  everywhere and now, even more so. I can't escape myself even, I am always just there.

It's scary here, out of my country, living in a new place, in the countryside. I have no job, no stocks or bonds. I am alone although there is community all around me. I long to be around people who know me, people who love me. I have a hard time opening up, trusting people to come into my personal space. Trusting others to know me. Most people's vibration feels so heavy. I have always felt people's vibration and it is so hard for me to keep myself separate from that.

I want to be able to say I hate it here and have someone listen, not tell me I should move to Hawaii or something crazy like that. I do hate it here but where else would I be? There is community here, we meditate together, we worship God together, we serve together. Everyday we all work together to build something, that is of a common goal. Staying in one place is like death for me. It is literally torture of the grandest scale to constantly get up day after day and be on the same schedule. It sucks. But I am in my cocoon right now. I am doing deep inward work here to find out who I am. I swear since I have arrived here I have gone so deeply into healing, I hardly know who I am. It is good and bad depending on the day. I am so sensitive. I can't stress it enough. It is so brutally impossible for me to force myself or affirm to others who I am. I was so strong before. But now I feel crippled, like a frail puppa inside a cocoon. Waiting for the day she will hatch. The thing is, I took this last year to be alone and sort myself out. Or so I thought. Turns out I wasn't actually alone by choice, I was just alone wishing I wasn't. It's looking like divine mother is coxing me to take another year, alone. To be alone and be in my own energies and get to know myself through and through. To stew in my own energies without confusing myself. It's tough you know because being alone isn't easy, especially at this age when the social norm for a twenty eight year old single woman would be to get married right about now. It's sad because for so long I have sought out that perfect someone. And now it seems, I am further than ever.

This next year would be wise to be dedicated to my career. Something I have neglected in a serious focused way as I have always uprooted myself right around the time things start to really happen. Dammit, I just don't have the patience or endurance to stick to things. It sucks. I need more Mars. I need Mars. I need Mars. I want someone to talk to. But so few people just listen. Everyone has something to say. Maybe I can practice being a listening ear for once. Be for people exactly what I want. I'm lonely Master. I am feeling terribly lonely these days and I wonder when I will let this end. It must be me perpetuating this constantly unhappiness and u-satisfaction. Please guide my footsteps.

Divine Ma I'm wanting you to hold me

Staying in one place is intense.

When you are still, you are faced, forced to be with yourself and everything that is inside of you. 

There are so many ways to avoid being with ourselves. For me, it has been travelling. Constantly moving around. It involves all my energy and focus, diverting the attention from the stillness that is conducive to seeing what’s really there. This morning I slipped from my usually morning sadhana and schedule. I slept in till 8:30am. 15 minutes before the morning meeting. I wanted to see what it was like for me without meditating, who would I be, how would I feel. Call it delusion but whatever, it needed to be done. I have wondered of meditation; has it been one of my main ways to avoid being with myself? I sometimes need to be just still. Not striving, nor praying, not asking, not moving, not doing laundry, not surfing the net. Just being. 

Listening to music really helps me. Just being completely still and listening to music. Sometimes I dance or move but I don’t do anything, there is no plan. My friend Bardia did this on our trip to LA. We put on some music, lit candles, put down a yoga mat and closed our eyes. And just were. 

I see that people have a lot of different ways to avoid what they are experiencing within their hearts. With men I notice that they distract themselves outwardly with activity, with friends, with work, with exercise and maybe girls. With women it could be with partners, food, or a lot of mental activity. What is there within our hearts that we are all so afraid to look at, what are we hiding from? For me it is a lot of hurt. A lot of pain from my mother and my childhood, stemming back to birth. Not feeling loved when I came into this world because my mother was in pain emotionally and did not feel support from her family, at the time of my coming. I felt these intense emotions when I entered the world and I remember and felt, and held the imprinting of that emotion, of not feeling loved.  It has become an emotional blueprint, a negative emotional pattern that no matter how toxic, is my comfort zone. Thus, I have attracted these types of situations. Right now a best friend of mine is not speaking to me. Before I returned to Laurelwood we had a phone conversation that didn’t go so well. The most hurtful part for me was him telling me something along the lines of he didn’t really think I belonged here nor did he think I would come back. It was very painful and reinforced these negative feelings. It hit very deeply and until today I couldn’t understand why my heart felt so much deep pain from him. Not that it wasn’t already painful coming from such a close friend, but it reminded me of the way I felt from my mother. And in reaction to this  energy, I got angry. I put out an equal amount of negativity to counteract what I was feeling. I felt so sad afterwards because I have learnt again and again that when a friend is hurt, the best I can do is love them unconditionally and hold the space until that negative emotion passes. I have had this same experience over and over and I wait for the day when I can act instead of re-acting. I invest myself too much in people sometimes. I make their healing just as important as mine and then when I get hurt by the, I take it so deeply. I need to be more emotionally un-involved, like Lakshmi. She does a healing on me and then she kicks me out of the room, whether I am crying or not. There is a healer that is not going to get herself mixed up in the emotionality. She always tells me, "just let them emotions come up, cry, do whatever you have to do but no need to go into the story" . She lets me just cry and be and feel but she doesn't ask me why I am crying. 

Being here, still, in the same place at Laurelwood, committing to something, forces me to examine myself more thoroughly than if I was to just skim the surface at a lot of different places. I've only been home for 3 days, but I have roots here and it scares me to death. It is not easy and the thought of being here for one year, alone, with myself is enough to send me into a deep inwardness already. I have been somewhat withdrawn these last couple days. I am also just feeling really tired physically. I'm not sure if it has to do with all the energy it has taken to resist the anger and sad feelings I feel from my closest friend, I have tried contacting him. He ignores me. It sucks but I will do my best to keep in my heart, in love. 

With the college going on here and so much outward activity, it makes me wonder what this next year will be like in my process of wanting to explore deeper into myself and deeper into my relationship with God. I really feel like I could use speaking to someone who really loves me and has stuck with me. Is there anyone out there?

Rest

It's as if it never happened. The whole trip down to LA for two weeks, the pilgrimage to all of Yogananda's shrines, the flow, the struggle, the highs and lows. I'm just here now, back at Laurelwood and all is calm.

Yogananda took me on a ride and daily, all I could was just let go of my plans and see what he had in store. Go to the store, but don't buy anything, stay here, don't walk there; it was a moment to money tuning in. The reason I say money is because I was tuning in moment to moment as I had next to nothing in my wallet at times and had to stay in the flow to navigate how I would get by. It's amazing how calm and centered life can be when we inwardly relax and trust. The times I panicked or got off center, I caused myself so much more mental suffering when nothing was even wrong. It's amazing. This life is just absolutely amazing. Sometimes I feel like having little money can be a blessing for some people as it really requires a greater amount of trust, attunment and creativity to daily manifest what we need. There is a tendency I see sometimes with people to just trust too much in themselves when they have that kind of material security.

I just finished this big push, two weeks ago now, preparing for Swami Kriyananda's visit at Laurelwood and the grand opening weekend. The flow of energy that went through me to create the designs and marketing for the big event was incredible. It was as if Swamiji and Master flowed right through me to create exactly what they wanted. I could have never done that on my own. I guess the prayers we do here to become clear and open channels works. I have been changed, my consciousness and how I feel about life has changed. Something beautiful happened to me that weekend, to everyone here in the community.

What is next in store for me, now that things have quieted down around here? I'm not sure. But we will find out soon.

Jai Ma

True Wealth

You can be rich and you can be poor and you can be poor and you can be rich.
This is a thought that came to me this evening as I was walking out Lotus Cafe with two of my friends.

If you do not believe in God, if you really disbelieve, I can prove him to you.

This evening I came home to Ananda Temple in Encinitas, California, where I am staying on vacation. I was about to meditate when I came out to grab something. On the table sitting in a neat little package were 6 small angel food cakes. How is this proof God exists you ask. Well... no one knows I am staying here. Except for one person and she had just dropped me off and left immediately. Angel food cake also happens to be my favorite cake and no one knows that except for my grandma. The most curious part is I have been wanting those exact tiny angel food cakes but never had the money nor did ever think of buying them for myself. I had just walked back from 7 eleven this evening from wanting something sweet but decided against it since it might affect my meditation. So I gave it to Guruji and then I come home and find 6 cakes waiting for me! How sweet it is to be loved by God. Ok, so that is kind of strange right?

I cannot begin to describe to you the miracles that have happened for me on this trip. The biggest miracle is that I left for Southern California 8 days ago with $120 in my wallet. And here I am staying 3 blocks from the beach right near master's oceanside hermitage. I stayed in LA for almost a week and had everything I needed. That $120 was gone a long time ago but daily, everything shows up. It's absolutely the grace of God and the love of my divine mother.

Yesterday, a sweet devotee took me out for a movie and popcorn. It was like divine mother herself was taking me out. It was in an old theater in Encinitas which people have said Yogananda may have watched movies at. Today, when my friend picked me up,  I asked her if she had had dinner and she said no but she had no money until tomorrow. I had just come from selling a couple silver coins I saved for a rainy day and told her I would be happy to treat her. We went out with another friend, an older devotee who looked like she had a lot of money. I happily paid the bill for my friend and I and realized, that just because someone has a lot of money, doesn't make them rich. My friend and I, though we had very little both treated one another when we had next to nothing. Divine mother always took care of us for that very reason.

Anyway, I didn't mention either that when I awoke this morning, there was a perfectly
ripe melon waiting for me right outside my daily meditation spot. It was my perfectly delicious breakfast.
I could go on and on about how much divine mother provides for me on this trip but you would probably get sick of hearing it and might not believe it.

Anyways, it's not like I just sit around and she does everything for me. But these last couple months I really gave myself fully to her in service and spent my money very conservatively in supporting a good cause. I didn't have to go without a vacation because I didn't have some large bank account with money I had saved up for months. I just decided I wanted, I needed this vacation and decided to trust her. I listened. She gives me more than I could buy with money. It is so sweet to receive when I don't ask, when I just let her do it.

Jai Joy

My whole life I have constantly felt like there is something wrong. There is something off, the timing is off, I'm off. There was something wrong when I was constantly feeling sad. The truth is, nothing is wrong. Nothing was ever wrong. It was all perfect, it's all perfect.

I was perfect when I was sad, when I was broke, that I felt abandoned, that I was jealous, that I got angry, that I didn't feel equal, or perfect, or pretty. That I didn't feel wanted or loved. It was perfect that I felt abandoned. I was never broken. It just felt that way.
Today, now, in this moment, I know that everything is ok. It's ok. It's ok that in this moment, I am not enlightened. I am closer to God than ever, but I am not completely there yet. I don't feel bummed out on myself that after my meditation, I have to go out into the world and live. There is nothing wrong with that, what I am doing or how I am living my life. I am doing the right things. I am not perfect and I make mistakes, daily. But I do my absolute best to tune in, ask for guidance and make choices accordingly. It's beautiful that each day I am learning how to attract and manifest what I need. That is true wealth. I have everything I need in this moment. I may not yet have what I need for tomorrow, but tomorrow doesn't exist yet. Only this moment does and if I take each moment consciously, I am sure not to miss out on anything. And if I do...it's ok.

Being sad, for so many years, allowed me to learn how to have compassion and understanding for people who are sad. I can help those who feel sad, I can love them, I can heal them. Going into my own pain, understanding it and allowing it to heal is a power beyond what I can describe. It is beauty. I am in myself, I am understanding myself, I am knowing myself and I love myself.

The time I have spent understanding how I am was not in vain. The pain was not in vain. I chose it. I chose it many lifetimes ago, I chose it before birth. Being alone here, right now and feeling so much  love I could explode....this is my test. This is my strength. Feeling so lonely and wanting so badly just to be held, in the arms of God, in the arms of my love, is where my strength will come from. Some days, I want to loose myself. Loose myself in another, in love, in a child, in marriage, in anything, in the darkness, in the light, in nothingness and quietness. I can hide when I am alone, but not  for long. I don't know how to tell you what goes on in my mind, but it goes on...and on...and on. My mind is a retarded monkey on steroids. It's annoying and it never stops.

Clarity with Nayaswami Kriyananda offering him a gift, receiving a blessing.

I have an idea of what I want to do for the rest of this week of vacation. I want to paint! I want to paint a piece for a dear sweet soul. I'm in Encinitas with like $7 in my wallet and not paints. So we will see what happens. God bless you.


Clarity