My journey in spiritual life is a huge part of who I am today. My journey has helped me understand how vast the Divine is, and how little I can truly understand.
When I was young, I was not sure who God was. But I definitely believed in something higher than myself. Upon going to church with my parents after Christmas every year, I was still confused and was looking for answers. Day dreaming, I would contemplate the idea of heaven and I would be afraid because the eternality was so immeasurable and challenging to grasp. I often wondered if this world was like a dream within a dream, and if I would someday wake up in a more heavenly place.
When I was 15 years old, I started doing silent meditation and breath observation. I read many books by Buddhist teachers and felt like I had entered into a new realm and had finally connected with myself. From this point onwards, I was always allured to the spirituality of the East. I continued practicing meditation as well as yoga for many years. I moved to Hawaii just to be introduced to different spiritual practices and be more deeply intertwined with a sense of spirit.
Hawaii is home to many spiritually minded people
In Hawaii I met many spiritually minded people. The island, the mountains and the sea of Hawaii too breathed spirituality. Every day felt like it was from another planet, and I dreamt of understanding that which was beyond my world. But I still felt like understanding more. One morning, I had a vision and a message that I had a “blue aura” and that I needed to move to Australia. Confused, I contemplated briefly this idea of moving to Australia and why I could have such a drastic vision. I had already planned on shifting to France for work, so I put the idea on the back burner.
I soon moved to France but before I left Hawaii, I became introduced to Sufi philosophy (or mystical Islam). Simultaneously I had been practicing yoga more rigorously and regularly. It was at this time that I felt a strong urge to continue in my search to discover the divine. In France, I felt very alone sometimes but I also felt a powerful shift on my journey.
It is stated in many spiritual texts notions analogous to, “seek, and you shall find”.
I felt an energetic pull to Australia at this time, and eventually moved to Melbourne to pursue my Masters degree. I realize now that this pursuit of a MA was not about academics or achievements, but was a way for me to come to Australia. At this time, I became introduced to Bhakti yoga, the ancient yoga tradition on India which focuses on perfecting loving devotional service to the Divine. Upon studying the philosophy deeper, it resonated with me at such a high frequency. I literally felt like the Vedic texts were being pulled out of my heart, my intellect and everything else about me and I found a high sense of resonance. My study of the Vedas made me understand God more and the interconnectedness of God.
We may all see and interpret God differently. I myself have viewed God differently. I have and still do refer to God by different names. We may have different funds of knowledge and come from different places. However, I feel that the God which we all have our own unique relationship with is the same. I do not differentiate between the God I connected with as a child and the God I am trying to understand more today. Alas for me, the idea of one God relates to how God is our best friend and will always be with us no matter what. It’s a principal of boundless love and devotion that is hard to explain intellectually, but can only be accessed through the heart.
