And now and again a client arrives at that ‘special’ place inside and rolls his/her incredulous eyes at me asking ‘I cannot imagine what all that trauma, rage was about. Life is the same and yet none of those things touch me any more. What has changed? All is the same and yet it is not. Nothing is the same only because I am not the same person. So then who was the one who suffered so?”

And this is the point when I know that I can speak to them about delusion and the haunting truth of Maya or illusion. For now they experience it, not as some lofty diktat but as wonder within their own transformation. It is also the time when I share the terse Zen wisdom of the journey being from ‘nothing to nothing.’ And almost always the penny drops.

Healing is the direct path. Beginning from who you are and where you are. Cutting through the fog of haloed scriptures and their weighty words. Touching the heart and the mind where it is, in pain/confusion/shadow-boxing/truant and traumatized. Targeting what I call the “I am” factor. For it is only when you KNOW stillness, peace, a-causal joy, witness your own fearlessness and abundance, feel the heart/mind move away from hostile and aggressive schemes and begin to express gratitude for the smallest things that you truly forget about God/goodness/right/moral and virtuous. Those concepts do not engage you anymore for you are agog with the stirring of your own liberating Self. And it just FEELS like you are all those things. Why then search for any God outside? For the humming bird does not tarry over the power of notes or the science of music….it knows the ultimate ecstasy in the spring of its own song.

So let me share one such wonder state that I witnessed recently. G came to me ostensibly happily married, loved by husband and in-laws and mother of a beautiful little daughter. I had met G a few times earlier through another client socially. ‘Sweet’ and self-effacing to the point of being painful, she was eulogized by all as the ‘perfect’ daughter/wife/daughter-in-law and mother. Eager to please with an un-erasable smile on her face G of course seemed to ‘good’ to be true. She showed up at office one day in tears telling me she was heading for a depression, cried all day and could not understand the source of her despair. What started as a mild enquiry into her confusion, led her to a bottled up rage within her which was startling. Emotionally ‘fearful’ and subservient, I asked her to begin with examining all her social ‘personas’ and stripping them down to their root. One day I gave her a medtiation where I asked her to pull out of her being all whom she saw as the source of her rage. G emerged, her face full of light, her eyes unusually bright and luminous and her smile for the first time was a full, spontaneous beacon of joy. There was such a marked change in her energy that I was taken aback. Especially since when I gave her the meditation I was not sure her ‘meek’ self could rise to identify the ‘perpetrators’ of her rage or allow her the
‘violence’ of pulling them out of her being.

In fact G went through each and every one of her ‘cherished’ relationships including her husband and chopped them all with impunity. Strangely, then G entered the world of her own ‘truth’ where she saw herself sitting amidst the chopped limbs, blood and gore, naked in deep meditation, she then ‘saw’ a fire burn up the residue around her while she sat unscathed at the middle. “I then saw the fire move to my chest and turn into a blue flame and I heard these words, “you are now free of the artifice of created selves. There is no need to fear anything or anyone for within you lies the truth of your Self.” And I suddenly felt like a huge rock has melted from within.” Bemused I asked G how she felt chopping down people she had been taught to revere and defer to her whole life. ‘Never felt better’ was her spontaneous response.

And so it is with the path of transformation. Within the heart lies the truth of our real feelings towards the world piled under layers of junk of ‘created’ selves. An eager to please ‘woman’ is harbouring a violent rage within to the very same people she serves and defers to all day. Living such abysmal spilt selves, fearful how the truth of our ‘real’ feelings will appear to the world, seeking validation at our own cost, suppressing our ‘fire’ under the guise of borrowed personas. Today G is so ‘changed’ that everyone cannot help but comment. She has embarked on a journey to become a ‘healer’ and is practicing amazing Reiki on her family. She has entered a space of inner
‘silence’ which is surprising everyone and her husband has become an ardent ‘fan’ of her Reiki. “I suddenly feel like I am worthy of respect and love just for who I am and feel no need to play into people’s unreasonable games and needs. I cannot believe there is so much to discover within. I suddenly feel I have a full time job just getting to know the world within ME. And for the first time in my life I wake up every morning and hear myself whisper ‘I am’ without the definitions of all those who surround me. The feeling is awesome,” says a calm, resolute voice which just a few days ago was barely audible.

As a participant in their journey, I too watch and learn the wonder of transformation over and over again. And sometimes, when I watch the most painful coils of the psyche unfurl, the darkest shadows of the self vanquished and the worst mind patterns tamed I too wonder about the before and after, the great divide between Samsara
and Nirvana. And when within just a few weeks a light, joyous being stands before me, I wonder is this really a great ‘road’ a difficult Path, a rare blessing or just much ado about nothing. One moment you sleep and the next moment you awaken. Just like that!