The breakthrough

If we are concerned with realizing the ground of being, with understanding who and what we really are, then we have begun a spirituality journey.
John Daido Loori
God's work is the actualization of the potential
Rumi
Let the beauty we love be what we do...
There are many ways to kneel and kiss the ground
Rumi


Begins the Odyssey

I did not know I had begun a spiritual journey when I began to question who I was and what I was doing here. I only realized
there was a great disturbance within me, something was crying to be addressed and I came in touch with the causes while going through the ARICA training in New York City.It was spring of 1975 and my life was about to change

A young and rather pleasant young lady whom I had just met through friends, spoke about a fort;y day program she had just completed and suggested I might look into it. When I asked questions about the training she was very enthusiastic but general in her answers. Not wanting to reveal too much regarding the program. This only increased my curiosity and with some trepidation I enrolled in the ARICA program. Little did I know how unravelled I would become during the weeks ahead...discovering that I was not who I thought I was and more important, seeking forgiveness from the many persons I had hurt in the past.

It was a process of clearing the blackboard of my mind of past conditionings,prejudices, opinions, guilt and shame harbored through the years and all other overlays or "veils" as Rumi would say,which prevented clear thinking and pure insights.

The ARICA training was held in a loft at Park Avenue South in Manhattan. I was put in the group having to deal with unfinished business with their fathers and I immediately clashed with the facilitator because I was certain that our filial relationship was and solid. Free of any hidden agendas. Dad had passed on a few years prior to this workshop and I felt we had parted as friends.
But during the group work I soon discovered otherwise. There was an old memory lingering in my subconscious memory bank. Like smoldering embers they eruppted into a full blown blaze during a late night meditation where both parents came into my darkened bedroom. Both were deceased but very present during this meditation

In the darkened room , late at night, I sat before the small altar and called forth first mother and then father to know the truth about my relationships with both of them. The love and affection between my mother and myself came through with great clarity. However upon calling in my father the scene immediately shifted to an incident which took place when I was eight years old.. I was transported back in time to the basement apartment . And with incredible accuracy every detail was present as I sat screaming and crying while watching my; father beating mama in the adjoining room. Neighbors and family came running to quell the ugly chaos happening before my terrorized eyes. An aunt was holding me as I screamed unconsolably over and over again..",I HATE MY FATHER AND WILL NEVER BE LIKE MY FATHER," . with that a ball of pain deep within my belly came roaring up and out with a piercing scream breaking the silence of my New York apartment.
In a fraction of a second, like a fast forwarding tape, my entire life until then, sped past and I saw how I distorted my life not to be like my father. Even more distressing was the truth that I never forgave my father for that terrible day, when in a rage, he had beaten mama unmercifully .
In that moment of truth I realized that my father always knew until the day he died, that I never forgave him..I never deceived him...only myself.
Shocked by the truth revealed during this meditation, I was determined to live as honestly as possible from that day forward. I did not know I was on the path of Self discovery ;but thanks to my processing at the ARICA training I became aware that major clearing was happening with this long postponed mental housekeeping.