Downloading Old Files

Wow. I woke in the middle of the night last night to finish this kriya, and wrote for a while. When I went back to sleep I had the most bizarre dreams. The first one was about my Dad, and in it I was facing a nebulous entity that I later realized was his cancer. I woke up hearing myself say out loud to it: "If you attempt to hurt him I will follow you to the darkest ends of the earth and kill you." I was shocked by my hatred of cancer.

The rest of the dreams seemed a strange way of processing stuff that must have gone deep into my unconscious years ago when the subconscious got overloaded; kind of like when a doctor's office puts old patient files in storage. I feel like these files, from when I was with the crazy Iranian terrorist I used to date, were some of the last of the seeds he planted.

Two days ago, upon waking up for my first morning at Sat Tirath Ashram, I danced and sang to my iPod. A little White Stripes, some B-Tribe, and whirling like Sufi got my energy back. I sat and sang along with Milla Jovovich, from her folk album from the 90s that I used to love so much. I had played it for the Charles Manson-wannabe years ago, and he especially loved that line about~ "no I haven't seen the flowers yet, from the broken seeds I planted. The ground is still too red from the wickedness you did." I have to say that I still feel I am uprooting seeds of misery that he planted, like dark, malevolent mantras intended to destroy the very cells of my body. I also think they were sort of like magnetic attractors that draw dark behaviour out of others, because though I felt fabulous after all of this, it changed quickly during the teacher training.

I could feel the frustration of someone sitting behind me as if they were staring at me with intently directed hatred and boring a hole in my head. I had worked hard to get past my own anger the night before, but this was really too much. I kept having to run energy through my aura to halfway protect myself, and by the end of the day the constant barrage of negative energy at my back took its toll. It was really, really frustrating. It was also tempting to return it, and to return the carefully hidden angry glances at me throughout the day. I chose to deal with it, by ignoring the person. In the book "Everyday Grace", Sat Purkh actually recommends the 'Silent Treatment' when nothing else seems to work, so that's what I did. It was damage control. It never ceases to amaze me how people who can be so kind and healing a presence can also be very unhealing.

By evening of that first day I felt sick. When I woke up yesterday at 1:30 a
after less than 3 hours sleep, I felt drawn to read from the Guru. The day before had taken its toll, but I needed the Guru more than sleep. And in fact I could not sleep, so I got up and read. I read until I felt healed. Then I read some more until I felt it was safe to leave the protective energy of the Gurdwara.

I have to ask rhetorically, because I know the answer: Why is it that when you are extremely grateful and complimentary to some people that they seem to try to do something to make you wonder why you ever were grateful to them in the first place? The answer, I think, is that we all, all of us, have a side, to a greater or lesser extent, that feels we do not deserve the compliments, and so we do something to try to make others hate us.

My own hatred in this situation was so intense Friday evening that I chose not to enter the sadhana room. I did not want to add my angry aura to a peaceful space. I sat with a now dear friend in the kitchen, and she held space for me while I felt the rage of everytime this exact same person has tried to push my buttons. My rage was cumulative and I had forgiven the infraction of my personal boundaries many, many times before, because I appreciate the gifts more than the pain. It all adds up though. And each time it happens again, you wonder how much more of it you can take and still forgive and love.

Though I by no means ever want to endure this behaviour again, I can use the experience this one last time. It brought up loads of the most deeply repressed and supressed rage at the crazy Iranian terrorist from my past, and, in a sense kick-started the down-loading of old junk that needs to be deleted from my brain. Junk that attracts this sort of behaviour. Like a magnet. But let me reiterate that others' responses in that vein come from the fact that they have that junk within them too.

There is always a healing to be had, a silver lining to be found, but that still does not make it okay to try to control someone, no matter how much you try to fool yourself and others into believing you are doing otherwise.

For myself, I will continue to heal the raw, angry places, and as Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödron says...the places that scare me. And I will not allow any more of this controlling behaviour. I wish others the best in their own journeys. When they are ready to approach me on the same level I will be here.