Spontaneous Healing of Depression in Bodhgaya

I met an Australian guy name Jon at the oasis of Kundan's Bazar (Books and Clothes) in Bodhgaya a few days ago. My attention rose when Jon mentioned an interest in tantra. We ran into each other a few times over the next couple of days. I told him of my sex work and porn and he asked if that wasn't draining and demoralizing. I told him it wasn't initially, though lately it had become a bit routine and professionalized... not necessarily a bad thing, but different.

I ran into him at a restaurant later and somehow conversation moved to my recent tendency to immobility and depression. I have these dreams and intentions of going and trekking or doing some outdoor adventure, and just traveling about, but when I get "there" the inspiration fades, or maybe I never get "there". My mother told me that when I was breast feeding, she had to hold me away from her body because if I got too comfortable, I would stop eating. I have thought of that often in recent years noting how I get someplace that is kind of comfortable, but don't move on to someplace/something that really makes my heart sing. I told Jon I thought perhaps I was just having trouble mastering keeping centered in the ever changing life of the traveler.

Certainly I have had an undercurrent of depression in my life, though I have had major breakthroughs and better and better periods of joy. The last two years have been difficult for me. Jon asked me why I was depressed and what I had done about it. I stumbled in my thoughts and words, not really wanted to admit that I was depressed now, even being a Reiki Master and all. Kind of feeling bad too, because I thought I had shed this pattern a few years ago when I got into Reiki in San Francisco. Now it really hit me, that I had fallen back into the depression pattern 3 years ago when I left San Francisco and became nomadic.

I told Jon I had done Reiki and prayer work on myself to try to shed the pattern. Jon asked me to name an ecstatic time in my life. It took me a moment to narrow in on one. Interesting because I know there are many many experiences that I have found joyful. I told him one... of the time when I decided to take up farming after graduate school. He asked if I couldn't do that now. I replied that it was no longer my time for doing such things... that was an old life... not that I might not return to it someday... but that it wasn't in the cards right now.

My head reeled a bit struggling to figure out why I was depressed. Sometimes I have thought to myself "I know I create my reality, and that I create these things that depress me, and/or choose to think depressing thoughts... and that is even worse because for some reason I still continue to do it!"

Within a few moments though, I started to feel better. At first I thought it was because I had thought "I wish this was over". I felt pretty good in spirits the rest of the day. Then evening came. I was supposed to have a date, but he flaked on the appointment. I started falling into thoughts of why are not lovers manifesting easily in my travels, why am I not being nurtured. I felt a wave of nasty emotions swelling up. And I hesitated for a moment, and thought well maybe I could meditate with a crystal or something. No use dwelling on what wasn't working for me. Within moments I felt an incredible high of energy swell through my body. Energized. Excited. I picked up a guide book and started to actually get excited about going to Ladakh... something that yesterday had seemed like what I ought to do because I would probably feel better there... but that I had no excitement about.

Now I was enthused! I soon began to wonder at this change. I had set the intention for such change in me, but I had done that before and it had not stuck. I slept and awoke in a great frame of mind as well. It dawned on me that this had all started with my conversation with Jon. So I confronted him later to thank him if he was sending me healing energy and to ask what he was doing. He humbly replied that he was just sending me heart energy "basically". I told him it was amazing.

He then offered me the advice, that I could take or leave he said, that I needed to be "more sexually responsible". I took this to heart. I noted that my latest tendency to depression had seemed to be more about my leaving my home in San Francisco. He said sexual stuff can go deep. I reflected on it. Certainly I have noticed that the last two or three years, my sexual desire has tended to come from a place of emptiness, rather than fullness at times. And certainly I could be more responsible in coming from a place of being sex and love and sharing that with people rather than not being sex and love and trying to gain that from others. I reflected and said nothing.

Over the next days I noticed myself more and more feeling like my "old self"... that is the "old empowered self" of my Reiki and sex embracing self when I lived in San Francisco and was at a "peak" in empowerment a few years ago. I felt my kundalini rise and excitement in all the eye candy about. I felt myself become more aware of what I wanted, who I was, and more focused on keeping to my spirit and my intentions. I had felt myself in a very similar state several weeks ago when I started the Soul Empowerment Transmissions (http://soulempowerment.wordpress.com ).

I realized what had really gone on for me was a complete struggle of my ego when I dissolved my life of residence in San Francisco and embraced being a nomad, a wandering mystic in a vague dream of who I am. I tried to shed myself of attachment to being a Reiki teacher, a healer, an escort, an artist... and become just a person who followed their heart and trusted the universe to provide abundantly in love, and food, and shelter, and money, etc. What glowed to me was rock climbing, swimming, climbing mountains... things that throw me into my childhood fears of not being strong/physical enough. At times my goal was then to be a backpacker/traveller/vagabond the world... but I didn't become attached to that ego-vision, perhaps because it brought up too many fears, perhaps because I was trying not to be attached.

I realized that my sexual activities didn't really cause the depression, as Jon suggested. Sometimes they fell prey to my whithered self confidence... struggling to be happy and proud of myself when I have "done nothing"... most of us derive our self esteem from doing things, and living up to some dream... conditional love... conditional belief in ourselves.

I could go on with introspections.

I mainly wanted to share with you the miracle of spontaneous healing... the miracle of what Jon calls "heart energy".

Perhaps you can feel it now... I hope you can!!!

Blessings from a happy DhamiBoo!!!

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The Mind of the Cells

I ran across a book called The Mind of the Cells, written by Satprem. It describes some of the "research" of a woman called "Mother" and Sri Aurobindo. It gets into the ideas of quantum and cosmic consciousness and the underlying web of energy that creates reality. Mother experimented with herself and this cosmic consciousness... Satprem quotes from her journals throughout the book.

I get lovely images of an elderly Mother having mystical experiences that sound similar to vibrating in the unconditional love that I often feel in Reiki sessions. Mother gets into the details of how our thoughts and consciousness choose reality on a thought by thought basis.

Mother says:

I looked, and I saw the power of thought over the body--it's phenomenal! You can't imagine to what extent it's phenomenal! Even a subconscious and sometimes unconscious thought acts and provokes fantastic results. I have been studying this in detail for two years--it's incredible! Very small mental and vital reactions, very small, which in our ordinary consciousness seem to have no importance at all, act on the body's cells and can create a disorder. But I know in an absolute way that if one can master all this mass of the physical mind, then one HAS power, one is the master: it's not a Fatality, it's not something that totally escapes our control, it's not a sort of "law of Nature" over which we have no power.

Mother notes how sticky Western medicine and it's consciousness is in hypnotizing us into being our diagnoses.

Satprem elaborates on the change in perception and reality when we step into the power of our cells and the universal grid of love and oneness. He claims that when we get into this transcendental state we actually move from the unreality of how we commonly perceive the world and move into the Reality of the True Law of the World and our full empowerment.

I don't know if the book is available outside of India, but it's an interesting read!
I particularly enjoyed a couple of key points in the book. One was that the consciousness of Western medicine and doctors is very sticky and hard to shake the hypnotic effect of Western diagnoses.

Bodhgaya: The first Soul Empowerment Transmission

I arrived in Bodhgaya late in the day last Sunday after a grueling 29 hour journey from Gangtok, Sikkim. During the journey I had had glimpses of the transmission for soul connection that I was sending via distance around the world. I had a sense of people consciously tuning in from all around the world. I had hoped to arrive in time to do the transmission Sunday morning, but the bus ran very late. So it worked out that I did the formal transmission Monday morning from under the Boddhi Tree. Since energy goes through time and space, this was no problem.

I felt the most amazing energy, uplifting, gentle, powerful. I felt a mix of what I was receiving myself, and transmitting around the world. During the rest of the day, I felt my own self aligning more with my true spirit. Clutter and fears from the past few years disappeared. My mind felt clearer and clearer over the coming days. My sexual energy was back in a good way, emanating from within. I had visions of my own true nature and clarity about how I might limit or dishonor my true path. The entire week has felt very powerful. Emotionally, it has been up and down a bit, as I work through my choices in each moment. But I feel like I am making new grounds in assertiveness and communication, and new clarity within myself.

I am about to embark on a Shiva Pilgrimage (http://www.angindia.com/sultanganj/sultanganj_sultanganj_shravani_mela.html), hopefully meeting some friends from Gangtok. It feels like what I must do, though I am nervous. I am thankful that I am not going through much second guessing like I have been the last couple of years.