Love and Fireworks
Last night I was on the plane headed back to California after a 10-day visit home. I love home and I absolutely loved visiting my sisters, mother, family and friends. My stay was the perfect amount of time, too. I was ready to get back to my own space, but I had not yet begun to crave it endlessly. It was like the perfect mutual break up. Anyway, I was reading on the plane...I finished 51/50: The magical adventures of a single life, and I began Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the soul. Below are two quotes from each respective book that have fundamentally altered me:
I kind of feel like love might be bigger than that. I can cry over losing that man for the rest of my life, or I can realize that he was the railroad switch that lead me onto the next path. And maybe that's all relationships are really for: to teach us how to live in this world. ~Kristen McGuiness
Your purpose for being here is to allow the universe to evolve...You, right this minute, stand at the growing tip of evolution. The next thing you think, the next action you take, will either create a new possibility for you, or it will repeat the past. You were designed to unlock hidden possibilities that will remain hidden without you. ~Deepak Chopra
These are without a doubt the two things that dominate my energy (and thus my thoughts, my writing, my life): love and purpose. I never thought that in being an infinite being I am, in fact, the key to unlocking more infiniteness. Something like the Russian doll, except backwards.
I had spoken with Nama a while ago about change and decision making. She said that when it came time to make a big decision she felt as though a fire had been lit and she had to act immediately; go with great intention in the direction she was being moved. At the time that she told me that I had not experienced a "fire" but I have experienced the sense of knowing something was the right decision. You would say that I experienced a pull whereas I see Nama's as a decisive step. Well last night on the plane, among the heavens I experienced something that I am not sure why is so significant but is.
I was sitting there reading Reinventing the Body...and I glanced at the woman next to me, she was writing in a gratitude journal. I knew immediately that we would understand one another, though I never struck up a conversation with her--I wanted to. I felt myself wanting to ask her about her book and wanting her to be curious about mine, and I knew we would both be excited about this new stranger who spoke our language. But I held back.
I immersed myself in the words of Chopra and I nearly stopped breathing when I read the following: The India I grew up in was a very religious country, even more so than today, and it contained a peculiar sort of spiritual groupie, a person who liked to hang around with saints--saint is an honorary term applied to someone in a higher state of consciousness. Ordinary people hung around them in order to soak up their energy. As a boy I had an uncle who was fond of dragging me along on such junkets. At the age of eight or ten I would be taken to sit cross-legged on the floor, having bowed down and touched the saint's feet in homage. My uncle would chat with the yogi or swami, but the real purpose of his visit was to receive darshan, which is the way he soaked up the saint's energy. I paused here and closed the book and thought about the extraordinary community of people who regarded spirituality so highly. I immediately thought of myself and though I hesitate to assign myself as a saint I do know that experience, of people just being drawn to you and who seem intoxicated by your presence. I said to myself, "Its just because people want to be seen...and I see people." Then about twenty minutes later after being completely lost in thought, I opened the book back up and continued reading.
As a term, darshan is simple--it basically means "to see" in Sanskrit. But it felt like much more to me: the experience of receiving someone else's energy was truly wonderful. Certain saints made me feel buoyant and carefree. Others made my mind go quiet, so that while I was in the saint's presence, I was at peace. Sometimes the darshan felt unmistakably feminine, as if my mother were smiling at me, even though the saint was a man (he might have been a devotee of Devi, the Divine Mother). Well quite honestly that was enough for me. I noticed that my hands were shaking and my energy was exploding, like fireworks going off inside me. I made three decisions right there on the spot, well really four:
- Nama is a saint.
- It is quite possible that I am as well.
- I have to go to India.
- (and the fourth) I cannot go to Cyprus this summer...it has to be Sri Lanka.
And immediately upon making those decisions I felt at peace. The fireworks begin to subside, but I felt that joyous euphoria that remains after just seeing the sky lit up so beautiful. My decisions were made, about friend, myself and my travel, and it was as if it were written all along. And of course, it was.