The Beginning of the Beginnning
Even though I know it is not true, I have moments when I feel as if I am the only person on the entire planet who experiences spiritual pain. From all possible aspects of pain, spiritual pain is the most intense in my case. I do not need to know on the personal level any human being in pain in order to experience a massive negative reaction in my heart chakra, in connection with all my etheric chakras. My awareness on the impersonal level is so sharp that I am catapulted out of normal human consciousness, to find myself in the middle of my soul fully alive and fully attuned to the miracle of creation and the disparity of its manifestation on the physical plane.
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Romania during Communism
Being born under the Communist regime is a most unfortunate event by any standard. Beyond the violation of human rights of the most basic kind – such as not being allowed to travel, not being allowed to express any criticism, not being allowed to think, feel and act freely – Communism has the infamous function of undermining human decency, human value, and especially human spirit. The system had no transparency and no accountability, it was dysfunctional on many levels and there was a high probability that sooner or later people would experience a bump with psychopathology, especially paranoia.
The Romanian Orthodox Church
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I have to confess that Communism is about godlessness and that Communism is not about godlessness. This statement is not meant to cause confusion. It only has the purpose of indicating a lack of congruence in the human experience. You might think of the following analogy: when you have a fever you might take an aspirin, but when you don’t have a fever you don’t think of aspirin at all. It is not good to have to take aspirin, but you allow it its legitimate raison d’être. While aspirin might not cause a high degree of ambivalence in the normal person, Communism and its position to religion was an unintended side effect of denying the natural state between a human being and divinity. And what was my personal advantage of this denial? Divinity for me has nothing to do with the traditional views or attitudes which are called “normal” for religious people.
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“Gypsies”: And I even managed to love them!
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Just like every totalitarian political system, Communism had many brainwashing techniques for us and one of them triggered our prejudice against the Gypsies. But lucky me, Ceausescu never knew my grandmother. She was the one who, intentionally or unintentionally, taught me some extremely valuable lessons about life. Ana did not bother with political systems. She had two household aides. And guess what? Irina and Stan were Gypsies. I grew up with them and I unconsciously internalized their kind and loving way towards me and my brother. For me it was always a pleasure to see them when I visited Mama Ana. When Irina and Stan babysat for us, we used to laugh a lot and I always felt sorry when they had to go. Of course, as a little girl I had no idea about minorities and/or race. You might think for a three or four-year-old girl that is OK. But I continued having difficulties understanding this type of prejudice even when I was ten and watched for the very first time the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. I loved Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, but I never understood why a young white woman should not have married her young Black boyfriend. I could simply not imagine why Sidney Poitier was not good enough, simply because he was Black. I also could not understand why Irina and Stan were not good enough, just because they were Gypsies.
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Jews: “Not Enough Jewish Bread at the Synagogue?”
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I was very sad for Natalia and her family and I was sad for myself for not being invited to Natalia’s dad’s funeral. When I mildly protested by asking my mom why we were not invited to his funeral, she only answered matter of factly, “Because we do not have the right religion.” I did not have any religion, right or wrong. And why was I being kept away from Natalia’s dad’s funeral while otherwise I always attended them?
This was the first time that I heard that people could have such a thing as the right or the wrong religion. I suppose I was about ten at that time. Natalia being as sweet as she was, once a year (please don’t ask me when exactly, but I think it was in the spring) she used to bring us some Jewish bread from the synagogue on a special Jewish holiday whose name I do not know to this day. Year after year I enjoyed eating my Jewish bread, but I always found that my portion was way too small. I did not dare ask for more, although I felt like it. My mom had a philosophy that “You do not appear hungry even when you are” and “You do not ask for more just because you like it”. So, in order to solve my dilemma, I came up with the following explanation: my portion of Jewish bread was so small, because the portion for my family was so small, because the portion for Natalia’s family was so small, because there was never enough Jewish bread at the synagogue! Although I did not like the idea, at least it helped me accept my very small portion of Jewish bread.
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Moving from Romania to Austria
My personal background is partially Romanian, partially Austrian and partially Italian. In the second half of the seventies my family and I left Romania to settle in Austria.
It was time to get to know more about my paternal grandfather’s universe. I did not feel I knew much about Austria, only that they spoke German like the German minority in Romania and were Roman Catholics like the Hungarian minority in Romania. But the Austrians were neither Germans nor Hungarians. They were Germanic and Roman Catholic at the same time. Even at a young age I was comfortable with the German language, but that was only one aspect of my move from Romania to Austria. I didn’t know enough about German-speaking countries, or their social, economic or religious culture.
My grandfather had never been very communicative about his Austrian heritage and at the same time I was never emotionally close to him. Even though we saw each other regularly, I remember him as a person who came across to me as a bit too aloof, too unapproachable and too uncomfortable to be around.
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Practically from one day to the next, I lost the emotional comfort, the academic familiarity and the effortless meaningfulness of my life in Romania, to move to Austria. I regained the feeling that indeed there is a right place for me within the universe, only after I entered the American system a few years later. Once again motivation, ambition and achievement were all encouraged and rewarded. As my life felt finally meaningful again, I was also equipped with a higher purpose, especially now that freedom on so many levels was truly a part of my experience.
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The Roman Catholic Church and Jungschar
Jung in German means young and Schar means a group of people usually connected to religious activities. For example, Jesus always had a big Schar of people around him while he was preaching. Jungschar refers to the groups of young people in the Roman Catholic Church.
I had my first encounter with the Jungschar shortly after my move to Austria when my friends from school asked me one day if I was interested in joining them. Of course, I was. I had no idea what it was all about, but as I’ve always been open to new experiences, I wouldn’t have missed going to Jungschar to experience it on my own. The meetings took place in a building next to one of the Roman Catholic churches and in my opinion they were basically social gatherings where grown-ups helped the younger ones with some charity projects or some social events, often before major religious holidays. I found everybody very nice, the activities meaningful and enjoyed going to Jungschar when my school work allowed.
While all my friends lived close to the school and to their church, I wonder why I was put into a school so far away from my home. I lived too far away to be able to join the Jungschar regularly. I have the most pleasant memories from my visits to the Jungschar, but since life is not meant to be pleasant for a Roman Catholic and their friends like me, more was to happen to complete my view regarding this oldest institution of Christianity.
Not only did my parents put me into a school that was far away from home, but on top of that it was also an all-girls school. Was I already half a Roman Catholic? And what did the two of them have in mind for me long-term? A monastery?
Just before Christmas, the whole class went to church for mass. I was entering a Roman Catholic church for the very first time at that point and my positive Jungschar experiences did not prepare me well for participating in a Roman Catholic mass. Not knowing what to do, I sat down on one of the mightily uncomfortable benches. After waiting for a number of minutes, I saw that I was the only one sitting while all the other girls stood in a long line.
As if that was not strange enough already, some of them looked absolutely frightened, some of them held their hands as if they were praying for mercy and others were simply unnaturally mute.
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In 2005 when the pope died I was forced by circumstances to watch the ceremony of his funeral on television, and while the neighbors in my room reacted as if this event was the biggest loss in human history, I only thought to myself in my hospital bed, “You apparently most modest man, in your most modest coffin, I still cannot stop thinking of you as the world’s first and greatest businessman ever!” And when at the end of 2007 the new pope proclaimed something like the significance of the revival of exorcism, I also caught myself thinking something nasty: “You must know exactly what you are talking about because your clergy bunch seems to be in the greatest need of winning the battle against their own inner demons, and stopping their favorite hobby of polishing each other’s halos!”
Neo-Protestants
Neo-Protestants were for me like an unexpected oasis in the middle of the Roman Catholic desert. When I received the Americans’ invitation to go to their church with them, I was as always open to do so. I knew very little about Neo-Protestants at that time.
In Romania during Communism it was not a good idea to be a Neo-Protestant. As soon as people gave a higher meaning to their relationship with divinity, the system reacted with a strong allergy to it. I had known neighbors who as Neo-Protestants faced discrimination in their workplace and were told not to activate their colleagues to become members of their church. They could not be stopped from attending, but once they started recruiting, things became unpleasant for them. Any public discourse ended up in prison and with a loss of all social contacts. It was almost impossible to be a happy Neo-Protestant while lacking freedom.
Living now in freedom I was even more curious about Neo-Protestants and their ways. Compared to the mechanical rituals of the Romanian Orthodox church which bordered sometimes on the superstitious and the scary expectations and dogma of the Roman Catholic church which bordered on the unnatural, listening to a Neo-Protestant pastor made unexpected sense! The quotations from the Bible were connected and came to life in pragmatic ways that I had never been aware of before. I was happy to realize that between latent emptiness and manifest horror there was something significantly valuable about the teachings of Jesus and his philosophy. The way my American friends led their lives, the way they interacted with one another both at church and outside, the way they brought up their children, the way they regarded life in general, the way they valued the conscious connection to divinity, all these factors became a very powerful source of practical inspiration to me.
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Energetically, trust is generated and sustained by the female aspect, while success is generated and sustained by the male aspect. In humans these two factors are determined by our relationships to our mother and our father. I need to wonder if Neo-Protestants perpetuate parental relationships that are significantly different in their quantity and their quality from the types of relationships found amongst people who are not Neo-Protestant? I am not sure about the right answer to all these questions, I just intuitively feel there might be a significant difference.
Aside from trust and success, which can be regarded as the foundation, I would also like to mention the concept of self-empowerment that makes such a difference in how far we allow ourselves as grown-ups to be fully mature and self-determined. Neo-Protestants experience the unlimited existence of resources and this enables them to fulfill their potential on a higher scale than someone who functions within given boundaries and frames and never steps outside the box. The practical application of all these concepts makes a difference not only on the individual, but also on the societal level. Neo-Protestants as a society focus on contributing and giving and this attitude is the seed of progress and improvement in all areas of human lives.
The Quakers
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I am not sure if this particular family of friends were so special specifically because they were Quakers or if they would have been just as special independent of any religious affiliation, but since religion seems to make such a difference in human life I suppose that I was dealing with a significant interaction effect. This was in the fact that they were special and that being Quaker reinforced all their special qualities.
It was impressive to see them function in the outside world being carried by a philosophy that made such a positive difference to all of them and all the people they touched. They incorporated a high level of congruence between thinking, feeling and acting. They had both a spiritual identity and a spiritual character. There was something powerfully healing about my contact with them. The interactions of family members with each other were always respectful and based on trust. Everything they did was to reinforce that trust and avoid any breach of trust. I had never been treated better in my entire life by a whole family. Everything was full of fairness, freedom, and kindness. The family placed a special emphasis on education, as all adults were highly educated and always open to learning in all its various forms. And there was one more aspect that was significantly different from everything else I had seen before. While most human interactions are about dominance and invalidation, especially by means of intimidation and humiliation, the interactions of the Quakers were always in the service of validating one’s own experiences. I never felt put down even when critical questions were asked and my deeper processes were put to the test.
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Parapsychology
When I was asked to teach a course in Parapsychology at an American university in Europe, I gladly accepted without knowing how enriching I would find the experience not only for my students but for myself as well. (Parapsychology is defined as the discipline that investigates the existence and causes of psychic abilities and phenomena, even though such events cannot be accounted for by natural law and are based on information that could have been obtained through the usual sensory abilities.) As the weekend for teaching my class approached, however, I started feeling an enormous resistance which I had not known before and which became so bad that my body developed a fever and we had to cancel. I told the organizer to reschedule by giving me at least two or three weekends before having to teach again. Something was going on with me that placed me in a situation that caused me to have a dilemma.
I knew I loved the topic of parapsychology. I knew it was a topic close to my heart and soul. I was also aware I had spoken about parapsychology in an informal way before, but I had no idea why I was reacting with such an unusual resistance when it came to teaching a formal class. It was interesting to observe how my physical body took responsibility for my process, by drawing attention to the fact that I was out of balance. When I told the organizer to give me time with the rescheduling, I was not worried about my physical body because I knew the fever would be gone within the shortest time, but I felt highly motivated to understand the deeper level of my own process. There was something very important going on and I could feel it even though I could not put it into words. On the one hand I was the intellectual asked to teach – an activity I have always loved doing. (As a matter of fact friends of mine who are familiar with astrology told me that in my horoscope they can see the constellation for my teaching talent, a fact which was confirmed in my life by being invited by two different people independent of one another to open up schools, which sadly never happened due to practical reasons.) On the other hand, I was the intuitive being born with a capacity to feel energies and aware of many phenomena – phenomena that most people do not have access to but that are to a huge extent a part of my everyday life ever since I can remember.
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Regarding teaching Parapsychology – that I opened up was quite miraculous, but at the same time that my students also opened up was just as miraculous. We all had our own version of In Search of the Miraculous, even though we all agreed that none of us understood a word of what Ouspenky and Gurdjieff were really talking about. I wish I could have kept all my students’ papers which were excellent and highly parapsychological, describing personal experiences, phenomena and insights. Who would have thought that in the mid-nineties the world was latently parapsychological?
Mother Meera
I heard about Mother Meera for the very first time while in the States and a friend of mine shared with me a book written by one of Mother Meera’s students. In his book he described a very intense energetic process which reminded me of previous readings. After finishing the book, my friend told me that Mother Meera lived in Europe at the time and I made a plan to visit her once I was back.
The day I arrived for my very first darshan, I was so excited and felt very fortunate. At the hotel, all the others had been at Mother Meera’s before and were thrilled to be back. People came from all over the world. Energetically, I could feel the incredible frequency and I knew I was in the right place at the right time.
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Now, Mother Meera started giving her blessing at the other end of the room and I knew I was going to be among the last ones to get my turn. I felt I needed that time to let the energy sink in before I was touched by Mother Meera. All the participants were very quiet, very disciplined and very happy. I was beyond time and space. I cannot identify more because I do not know the words. After a certain number of hours, my turn came to move in front of Mother Meera, and as if I had not already experienced more than enough mysticism for a million lifetimes, even more was to come my way.
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I suppose when words fail us that is when we humans reach that spiritual dimension we were meant to embody from the very beginning. It was the very first time at that darshan that I experienced the meaning of just being. I know it had nothing to do with me as a human being, but was facilitated to me by Mother Meera’s consciousness. She gave me an incredible, unexpected and unique present by sharing with me for a moment the immensity of divinity by using her consciousness as the bridge between the worlds.
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“Samurai!”
Having suffered through the difficulties of learning the Hiragana alphabet by no means makes me an expert of Japanese culture, but since I was so fascinated by everything that came from so far away, I could not resist attempting to learn Japanese. From my childhood in Romania I remember watching Japanese movies on television and having a very strange reaction regarding the effect Japanese men and Japanese women had on me. When the ladies spoke I felt very comfortable, but when the men spoke I usually became scared (I need to add in Romania to this day the movies are always presented in their original language). Why gender had such a powerful effect on me when it came to Japanese movies, I do not know.
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In my usual habit, I went into a meditation and even at the beginning of my relaxation I felt there was a very powerful message coming my way. My soul guided me through the experience which on the one hand made me aware of my human dimension with all its confusion and limitation, and on the other hand of my spiritual dimension full of wisdom and infinity. Turning inwards had been my habit for a very long time and I cannot express enough my gratitude to the universe for allowing me to have this access. I remember looking for guidance regarding something new, that would make the feeling that I was in a constant inescapable free fall stop. I needed a new insight that would help me cope more easily with all the external changes which at times seemed unpredictable and overwhelming.
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I have had many powerful experiences in my meditations, but this one was among the few ones which carried with it one of the most powerful, transformational and profound effects I have ever known. The frequency of the archetype of the Japanese Samurai is one of the highest I have ever encountered on the energetic level. Probably on the human level only a certain number of Samurais embodied that frequency, but the Japanese Samurai as an ideal is an aspect of each soul.
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The Romanian Orthodox Church After the Fall of the Iron Curtain
It was about twenty years after my move that I felt yet another call back to my human roots of my present incarnation again. Two special experiences come to mind as I reflect upon Romanian spirituality. Friends of mine in the Romanian mountains invited me to go to their local church one Sunday morning. They had also arranged for me to speak to the Romanian pastor.
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Within the shortest time, the pastor came to greet us and I explained to him how moved I was by the energy of his church. He was impressed that I noticed. It would have been impossible for someone like me not to notice. We had a profound interaction regarding practical aspects of my life and the philosophical considerations of our connection to divinity.
During my conversation with him I broke down in tears and he later told my friends he had never seen anyone cry like me his entire life! My experience was completely cathartic. I understood why the church had such special energies when I met the pastor and interacted with him. He was truly a living link between the heavens and earth. His frequency was so high that his mere presence caused all the blockages to dissolve.
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When we expect it least, life seems to have even more generous presents for us. It was that same summer that I found myself, upon the recommendation of friends, visiting a monastery where the resident monk Father Teo was renowned for his harmonizing energies. I could connect to him immediately and in his presence I could feel his profound and strong connection to divinity. I truly felt happy to meet such a special soul and spend a little bit of time in his presence. His energy stayed with me for a very long time and I enjoyed the high frequency every second of it.
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Sometime later our regular pastor asked me why I didn’t show up in church more often. I told him that I found the service to be much too long, much too redundant and without a learning effect at the end of it. I told him that I preferred, when sitting in church, to know more about god at the end of the service than at the beginning. I told him I was expecting a learning effect, the kind I had experienced with the Neo-Protestants. He was shocked by my undiplomatic elaboration, but as he processed my comments, he looked at me in a way that made me feel as if he could understand my reasoning and motivation. He wondered about my openness towards Father Teo and I explained to him that Father Teo was not about religion, he was about spirituality. He seemed to have an a-ha experience.
Universal Life: My New Plant
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Once I had my group of students, I gained access to the privileged PhD room and more than that to the sanctuary of the conference room of our department. After the meeting of all the PhD students regarding their new projects, I could not resist questioning the professor on the state of the plants in the conference room. He looked at me as if he had just been given a magical magnifying glass.
Since he had some difficulties understanding standard human language without any statistical complications, I explained myself in no uncertain terms. “Not that I would expect YOU to water the plants in the conference room, but doesn’t at least the cleaning lady…?”
He interrupted me abruptly before I could finish and in a shocked way he only answered: “No, nobody does.”
“Then from now on I declare myself in charge of watering the plants around here.” He must have been at a perfect loss because he had no idea what to say or do, he only stood around glued to the ground like a statue. I did not mean to put him into the same comatose state that the plants were in.
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The professor came back to the conference room to check on what I was doing. Once he discovered the bottle of plant nourishment, he said, “This will stay in my office!” and grabbed the bottle.
I asked him, following him to his office, “How do you imagine that I can take care of all the plants if you keep the plant nourishment in your office?” He seemed to have a brilliant idea. “You can come into my office anytime you want.” I tried to stay as rational as I could.
“But you have meetings all the time! Why would I ever want to disturb you?”
The apparently triumphant only stated, “This bottle stays in my office!”
“That is OK with me!” I replied, which he mistook as a declaration of submissiveness. But my inner geisha was on vacation. “But since your suggestion does not really work for me, I will buy myself another bottle of plant nourishment.”
He stood there in the middle of his office with his mouth open and shocked. To make myself clear I continued, “First thing early tomorrow morning!”
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To make sure my comatose plant was in a positive healing process, I wrote a note saying “I love you just the way you are!” and glued it to the bottom of the pot. I telepathically explained to my plant that we could not afford to have the note placed visibly on the pot, but that under the pot nobody would care to check. The plant must have been quite happy with me because it recovered day by day and became one of the most beautiful plants I ever saw. It survived for many more years and I am very happy that I was a part of its life.
“Karma or Not, I Am the Woman on Top of You!”
As our building was renovated, many apartments stood empty for a while, but after a number of years of renovation ordeal, new people started moving in. I was partially quite curious who would be my new neighbors from the surrounding empty apartments. One day I noticed that the apartment from under my room had beautiful new red curtains hanging and of course, I was curious to see who the new inhabitant was.
A few days later, as I went to bed in the evening I heard loud and exotic music and I figured it came from downstairs. For the whole night this unusual music did not stop. I could not identify the origin of the music, but I thought it came from around China or India. Needless to say, I had a sleepless night and felt very tired the following day. I am used to sleeping in the dark and can only relax when everything is quiet.
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A while later, my next door neighbor told me about the wonderful massage Karma gave her and wanted to know if I had also received one already. I had never seen my neighbor so excited before and at that point we had been next door neighbors for about 25 years. With the neighbor’s enthusiastic recommendation, I asked Karma if I could also have one because I was curious about his work. When the time for my appointment came I was more than ready for relaxation. And when I entered Karma’s apartment I knew I was in another world. To me it was like entering a temple, in a different time, in a different space. I told him, “Karma, you are coming from a very special place!”
Karma was flattered and while I was admiring the entire decoration, the crystals and the pictures on the wall, he added, “I am coming directly from the Dalai Lama!” I had never heard someone be more proud about his origin than Karma at that moment. But the first time I met Karma in the building, I had already noticed his special energy and I immediately made up my mind that I could only like a person like him. Dalai Lama or not, Karma could not have increased in my high regard for him.
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My Native American Shaman
When I was a little girl my brother who is only a bit younger than me used to love playing cowboys and Indians. I am not even sure if that is the name of the game, but it was about cowboys and Indians fighting and killing each other. I remember that when a horse with an Indian dropped dead, I immediately came to pick it up and bring it back to life. I have no idea why I did that I only remember doing it.
As a little girl I did not know anything about Native Americans, except when they showed up in American movies, especially in Westerns. In school my history books did not make any particular mention of Native Americans. Only years later when as a young adult alternative medicine was conquering my life, did the Native Americans reenter my consciousness along with the Chinese and the Indians. Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda are closely related to the Native American healing art. Everything alternative fascinated me from homeopathy to spagyrics and everything in between.
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I introduced myself by name and geographic location. At the other end of the line, in the softest and mildest tone a motherly voice said, “My god, I am so happy to finally hear from you!!”
I was speechless and did not know how to react.
My Native American shaman explained: “I was informed about you by my guides about six months ago. I kept wondering what took you so long?”
I had never been more surprised in my entire life. At the other end of the world somebody knew I was going to call and was so happy to finally hear from me!
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As I pondered about her, I felt put into another galaxy in which spiritual laws finally get manifested. There was something very familiar about this new galaxy, but there was also the awareness that we humans have difficulties staying aligned with it. All her recommendations made me have mystical experiences which transformed some of my older views on things into new expanded insights. As I look back at my experience with my Native American shaman, I wonder how come their knowledge has so far not been integrated to a higher degree and on a grander scale. Why has our world not discovered the treasures that lie within the Native American heritage? Why are they so marginalized at a time when union and togetherness define the pulse of time?
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Sister Augustia
As I was lying in my bed relaxing after my session of physiotherapy at the clinic, I heard a knock on my door and as I looked up a Roman Catholic nun stood in front of me. Her energy told me that she had completely transcended being a nun and being a Roman Catholic. She asked me about my roommate whom she apparently came to visit. I explained to her that Dana was in one of her sessions, but that I would let her know about the visitor. She said, “Please tell her Sister Augustia wanted to see her!”
I promised to do so and the nun was again on her way out, but after making a few steps, she came back and asked me, “Do you also need to talk to me?”
Under no circumstances would I agree to, first, making myself dependent on a dialogue with a Roman Catholic nun, but second, to being impolite to someone just because of their faith. So I answered.
“I am in no need to talk to you, but I would enjoy making the choice of wanting to talk to you if you have a few minutes for me!”
She looked very surprised, but accepted my answer and came closer to me.
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How Sister Augustia got to this high level, I cannot say, but I know she touched me deeply. I have the impression not only that she had this high level, but also that she was fully aware of it. Sometimes I come across highly developed souls who are not aware of it. Sister Augustia was both highly developed and fully aware of it. Sister Augustia was much more than what she presented at face value. I understood that everybody enjoyed speaking to her and appreciated her qualities.
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Berkin: “A Most Modern Mom!”
My daughter’s phone rang and from her answer I gathered the person at the end of the line must have asked what she was doing at that moment. “I am sitting in my mother’s room chatting to her.”
It was Berkin, one of my daughter’s friends from Turkey. Even though Berkin was not present, whenever he is on the phone we laugh a lot and philosophize about different things in life. He wanted to know what our plans were for the next few hours, probably because he wanted to meet my daughter downtown.
“I am waiting for The Girls at the Playboy Mansion to start on E!Entertainment,” I stated for my part.
Berkin at the other end of the line heard me and burst out in laughter, “A most modern mom!”
My daughter was a bit shocked and wanted to know what happens in this show. I explained to her and Berkin that The Girls at the Playboy Mansion was not on the Playboy Channel and that there was nothing explicitly sexual about these episodes.
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“Don’t they have sex?” my daughter asked.
“Not in front of the camera!” I said. “But otherwise I truly hope they all do!”
Berkin could not stop laughing while my daughter pretended to be surprised at my answer. I wondered at that point why my daughter at 16 had not been able to escape the usual brainwashing regarding social sexual mores and attitudes.
As a mom I felt like a complete failure in my conscious attempts to teach her to at least feel comfortable talking about sex, of course with the higher aim of enabling her one day to have sex without the usual guilt, inhibitions and complications that mainstream upbringing causes in all children, especially girls.
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I would have never have dared to recommend her When Harry Met Sally..., had it not been for her inquisitiveness at the age of four-and-a-half. One hot summer evening, while I was torturing myself by ironing some laundry, one of the German channels showed a program about sexual emancipation in the 70’s. My daughter moved from a lying position to sitting up as if she had heard the news of the century. I can imagine at four and a half it was. She looked hypnotized. I could only ask her, “Are you interested?” Still glued to the screen, she nodded.
“Then listen well!”
She did.
The then already twenty-year old movie that was to emancipate generations of Germans could not have been more childish, more ridiculous, or more embarrassing to every liberated human. But for a four-and-a-half-year-old girl it was apparently fascinating. She could not get enough of it.
During the commercial break, I asked her “What is sex?” She looked at me as if I was the most stupid person in the world. She was right. I behaved in the most stupid way.
She looked at me and asked, “But mommy, do you not know?” She didn’t wait for my answer, but only replied, “Sex is flowers and champagne.”
I had never heard a more innocent explanation of sex before or after as a matter of fact. I was so surprised that I spontaneously asked, “What do you mean?”
She was outraged at my stupidity and must have wondered how I managed to become a mom in the first place. “But mommy, do you not know? He comes and brings flowers and champagne and then they kiss.”
That conversation with my four-and-a-half-year-old was most enlightening to me. I was happy about her intuitive approach to sexual matters and her natural disposition to talk freely about it. Grown-ups, if they ever had it, lose their intuition and natural inclination when it comes to sexual topics.
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Burak and the Hajj
“Mom, let me introduce you to my new friend Burak!” my teenage daughter said while she brought the young man into my room. I extended my hand towards him and welcomed him to our home. He didn’t expect to be treated politely which made me very sad. My sadness and his insecurity served as a valuable hint of the delicate situations humans find themselves in when they focus on differences instead of similarities.
I asked Burak where he was from.
He answered in the most apologetic way, “Turkey.”
I continued. “Then you must be a Muslim!”
Burak moved from apologetic to guilty, and I countered, “You are just the person I was waiting for!”
Burak and my daughter thought I was crazy. But congruent as I am, within seconds they knew what I was after.
“I watched all the presentations of Hajj on CNN.”
Burak lightened up like the sun. I needed to ask Burak about where the Hajj was taking place. He was not sure what to answer and I explained that I thought it should be Mekka. He confirmed this and I wondered why they never mentioned Mekka on CNN.
I had spent the entire day being impressed by the huge masses of people participating in the pilgrimage and by the extremely high frequency of the energy of the masses. In an interview a lady expressed her gratitude for her big chance to be there and her hopes for having enough money in the future to be able to return.
“Burak, how expensive is it to go to Mekka?”
Burak was too confused to know, but in his eyes I saw curiosity in regards to my question.
…
While watching the people at Mekka, I did not think for a second that they were unfeeling or unthinking. It makes me very sad when prejudice overpowers reality. I experienced the people interviewed as being good-hearted, well-intentioned and highly intelligent. They were the kind of people I wish I could have as my friends. There was nothing unfamiliar or strange about them. Quite the contrary, I was happy about the sense of innocence, centeredness and balance they displayed. They reminded me of my two special Muslim friends Esma and Azita.
At some point my daughter interrupted my conversation with Burak, probably feeling that I was monopolizing the discussion beyond politeness. I was happy to hear Burak talk to her in a fluent way once they left my room, because he had been a practicing mute there. Good to see that I had not done any harm to Burak by being curious or inquisitive about his culture. Burak must have been surprised that he was welcomed by me with all his differences, especially in the year 2009. He made me aware of how much healing we all need!
Applying the Energies of Our Time
Where do we go from here? And HOW do we go from here?
The energies of our time are new. That might sound like the most ridiculous statement ever simply because all ages can claim the same of their own times. When I refer to “new” I mean on the energetic level. In the past “new” usually referred to the social or economic or political or technological levels.
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Another interesting aspect of our current situation is that again and again we hear vague comments that imply the female energies, but the expression of the people commenting on them are so abstract that they seem to be identified as such only by the initiated. If we want to heal ourselves and our world, either all of us turn into initiated people or we make our expressions more concrete for every human being to understand. Otherwise humanity stays caught on the pre-conscious level and wastes valuable resources that could be put to better use when acting from the conscious level instead of from the pre-conscious.
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According to the energies of our time, all misunderstandings are surfacing more and more and at the same time they get disempowered. Spirituality implies applying eternal universal principles to life as it happens in the moment. Imitation is not only wrong, it is fatal. It keeps humanity separated from the source and it perpetuates spiritual pain.
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From the global exposure of CNN to the wide spread reputation of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to the complete anonymity of Singapore, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and Ecuador, divinity is present everywhere at all times. I hope the few examples I mentioned are only a reflection of my tiny personal universe, in the hope that around our world every single day such examples can be found. Each one of us is a universe on its own. I assume that each one of them contains undiscovered treasures of divine potential. Maybe the conscious interaction with all the available treasures can help each one of us facilitate healing and the manifestation of creation as it was originally intended.
…
From the look on her face I knew that the answer, “Not religious, spiritual!” was unfamiliar to her, but I was going to make it worse for her by stating the following. “Even if I am not religious, if it represents any type of requirement I speak to representatives of all religions!”
The poor nurse was very insecure for a few seconds and had no idea what to answer. She was a very kind human being who realized within a split second that it was best not to comment.
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(This is the end of the free reading sample)
Cristi-Ana Montesanto 