"Are you ready?" Staying Open To Being Guided On The Journey to Consciousness

One of the first experiences on my healing journey was being introduced to meditation. Back in 2002 my aunt gifted me a weekend meditation event with Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. I had never done anything like this and was completely skeptical. I had grown up Catholic and was holding a lot of "Catholic guilt" exploring other things that were spiritual. But I trusted my aunt who was also my God-Mother to guide me and am forever grateful she did.

So I show up to this event in this huge auditorium, with 100's of people at the Masonic Center in San Francisco., and took a seat with my aunt. On stage there was a big chair where Gurumayi would be sitting for the event. Throughout the event she would come out from the staging area and sit. She wore a saree and looked really comfortable as she sat cross legged in the big chair. She had a calmness, a confidence, and a clarity I've never seen before and when she spoke she drew you in with every intentional word.

Throughout the day she gave a talk that helped shift your perspective on life as you know it. There was chanting, guided meditation, and ritualistic ceremony. This was again all new to me and I stayed open despite how sometimes it brought up uncomfortableness in me. As I took in my surroundings some people seemed euphoric with the chants and meditation, so much so that their heads shook back and forth rapidly (this kinda freaked me out) but I tried not to judge. My 23 year old unconscious self did not have any tools to grasp what was happening, though my aunt helped me through the first day.

The second day I was on my own for the event cause me aunt couldn't make it. Toward the end of the event a woman came up to me and asked if I would like to be part of the "waving of the lights" ceremony they did in front of Gurumayi. I had no idea what that would entail, but I stayed open and said "Yes!" So I met up with about seven other girls who were getting ready in the back. They put me in a white saree with fresh flowers in my hair and gave me a silver tray with a lit candle, flowers, tumeric and other maybe a few other things. This felt really sacred and I was honored that they chose me out of 100's of people to do this.

So me and the other girls sat in the middle aisle waiting for Gurumayi to sit in her chair. Usually she would come out from behind the stage area, but this time she came through the back of the auditorium and walked up the middle aisle. We all stood up and she walked calmly up past the 100's of people and directly to me, looked me in the eyes, and said "Are you ready?" I was so flustered I don't remember what I said (I think I said yes) and then she continued up the aisle and sat in her seat. We proceeded to do the Waving of the Lights cermemony, where we moved the trays in a circlular wave like motion as the whole auditorium sang Jhota se Jhota, one of my favorite chants of the weekend. We then each individually bowed to her as we proceeded on and went to the back where I got back in my normal clothes and they gave me the flower and candle that was on the tray (which I still have) and I that was the end of the event. As I left I felt like my body was shaking and the energy that was coursing through my body was like nothing I've ever experienced.

I called my aunt and told her what happened and what I was feeling with the energy in my body. She said it sounds like you received Shaktipat (in simple terms an awakening of energy that can happen when you're around someone who is resonating on this kind of high energetic level that Gurumayi is embodying). For the next two weeks I was euphoric and everything around me felt connected and like unconditional love. Especially when I was in nature. I felt like I was high on something, but I never took anything. Everyone around me I saw with love and I've never felt more grounded. When the leaves would rustle or a beach wave would crash I would feel a euphoric vibrational energy running up and down my spine. As I walked around the UCSB campus I looked at the buildings and it seemed that I could see every particle of the building moving and vibrating. This didn't freak me out for some reason and I remained in this state of pure bliss for about two weeks. The more I tried to describe what was happening to friends or the people around me who did NOT get what I was experiencing (lol) the feeling started to fade a bit.

My aunt said stop telling people about it, just enjoy having the experience.

So I did just that. I would continue to meditate and listen to the chants to try to keep the feeling alive within me. Some weeks it would lay dormant till I would be on the beach and then a wave would trigger the kundalini energy and that euphoric energy up and down my spine. I felt like I had been gifted this thing that shifted my perspective on everything, and I wanted to learn more about how this was all happening and stay on this path. To dive deeper.

I continued on this journey of becoming more aware and conscious of my inner landscape. Gurumayi didn't seem to do any more events after that and hasn't since. There was a desire to be around her energy again and when I asked others in the community about it they would say stuff like she wanted to show us the feeling comes from within you not her. Basically do your own inner work, do the practices and you'll experience this feeling.

I was then guided by someone completely out of these social circles to explore doing massage as a business (another story for a different post) and the school I went to felt like it had the energy of Gurumayi there. As I explored around the school turned out that the owner was also a devotee of Gurumayi. When I started doing my Yoga teacher training the yoga studio I chose again had Gurumayi's energy there and sure enough the owner was a devotee of Gurumayi. It feels like she's been with me all along on this journey and every time there's a synchronistic experience I hear her saying, "Are you ready?!"