Searching

I have been searching God so hard these past 6 years. I have been storming the gates. Shaking heaven and earth for answers to who I am. I couldn't really go on with normal life, with society living - not knowing my soul.

I have been unbalanced and extreme in my search and I have literally tried everything. I couldn't be happy when I was not meditating, praying, chanting, doing some kind of all night ceremony, fasting, taking herbs, cleansing, purifying, doing yoga, standing on my head, sweat lodging, sacrificing. I have done it all.
Now, I am living in a community that is hosting a college in residence and I am living around a bunch of college students. Talk about learning to come back into balance to another extreme. These are spiritual kids but still, they are college students. It has been really good for me to  just be, to just talk, hang out, go for walks. I am learning to relax. God is always there, she is not going away. It's been almost this feeling like I need to get there now, and to hell with this world. But the thing is, 6 years later the world is still there and it ain't going away. I have literally paid no attention to it as I have gone back and forth from ashram to spiritual retreat to pilgrimage, here there and everywhere. Money, career, all those things have fallen by the wayside. Nothing has changed outwardly from all the moving around but I know myself a hell of a lot better and realize that relaxation is the only thing necessary to get anywhere. When I say relaxing, I mean inward relaxation, being mentally calm, more even minded.

Man, I used to go all the way up and then all the way down and boy, people better get out of the way when I was down. I think spirituality was a big mask for me for what was really going on inside all those years. I had an incredibly bad temper and a lot of  deep sadness. I didn't know how to cope with those emotions. We are never taught in school or society how to deal with feelings. Mostly it's to either suppress them or hide them. Worse so, to take them out on someone else. It's a poison we are taught to swallow, smile and bear. It's a very sad thing. But after all these years and all the austerity and sacrifice, I'm right back to where I started. My emotions and bottled up feelings were all still there. The difference is now, I'm brave enough and responsible enough to face them. I'm facing them, letting them come up, feeling them and releasing them. I'm not afraid to feel pain anymore. More so, I'm sick of bottling them up. It is time to cope with life. I'm not masking it anymore because I have nothing to mask it with. I have given up drugs(for good), relationships (for a bit), the two things that allowed me to hide from myself these past ten or so years. Meditation has actually been another big escape for me. SO these past couple days, I've been sleeping in  and doing shorter 30 minute meditations rather than 1hr or 1.5hr.

These college students are helping to balance me out. Another things too is dancing. I have been doing Inner Dance a lot more these days and I love it. It is a source of much joy. This past full moon I hosted one with some of the students and it was a really beautiful time. I am coming back to enjoying life, not forcing myself or denying myself the things I love.

Enjoying life. WHY THE HELL NOT?