Yuppie Turn Yogi

It's been a long while since I blog. I reckon it's time to return to write - journal rather.

It's close to a year that I took this career break and embark on an extraordinary journey of my life. I'm right now in San Francisco working towards my MSc (Finance). It is a very interesting time to study Economics and Finance. At the same time, I am also working on myself - spiritually. I stay with a group of meditators, aspiring yogis. I choose this journey because I want to learn to love better; I want to learn about self-empowerment - the type that comes from within - now that is something to work on. I recognize the fact that it is not a problem to achieve physically including good results from last semester but it is indeed a different set of rules and regulations altogether for spirituality - I won't even use the word achievement, perhaps attainment.

More on this later ... class on Finance now.

That De Javu Feeling

I couldn't explain. But I felt a familiarity and very much at home at Mt Abu. I was never a religious nor a spiritual person to begin with. I was brought up in a mission school and very exposed to biblical classes and hyms of praise. I was never devouted as I somehow just could not open the door of my heart to God back then. I suppose I was not ready though deep down I knew one day I just had to because He revealed Himself to me a few times in my earlier days as a student. At Mt Abu, He orchestrated everything the way it was because I actually seek for Him this time round. Everything I seek for was answered so I simply just be and received.

I was not one for sure to sit still for more than five minutes. Silence drove my yuppie conciousness crazy! Part of the workshop and the talks touches on the topic of silence and meditation. I had gone through a course before earlier in the year on Raja Yoga (very innocently - how I got myself into it, is another story) thought I got away with it but there must be a reason why I had to come to face with this topic and lesson again. Being in Mt Abu, there was simply no distraction to bring me away from facing this reality. Besides, miraculously, situation had it that I felt I just had to try. The atmosphere and meditation guide made it conducive to just try. I suppose when the student is ready the teacher appears. The Teacher got smart this time round and He roped in several instruments to help get me there.

The feeling of De Javu when I feel the sense of familiarity with three of the hosts. It was as if I met them somewhere before. And as a matter of fact, a few months later, my encounters with them confirms the feeling I had. It was as if instinctly I already knew I would have further close encounters with them. Prior to my adventure, I had never had any contacts with them nor read about them. Strangely I could just pick them up amongst so many of them - strangely, they came from the same cluster - all stayed in London. I could not understand but does it matter anymore?

The Day I Experienced LOVE

We took a bus ride from Gyan Sayrovar to Mahduban to meet the Administrative Head of the Brahma Kumaris. Dadi Prakasmani (fondly known as Dadiji) welcomes us at a hall with a gathering of over two hundred delegates from more than forty countries. I was one of them.

When Dadiji came on stage, everyone stood up to welcome her. I felt "something" I could not understand but I certainly knew I felt "something". It soon came upon me that I felt the same feeling I had as a little girl of about one to two years lying on my mother's lap drinking milk from a bottle. That was a feeling of motherly love. Very secured feeling. The kind of love where there is no expectations. The kind that left me feeling at peace with everything around me.

The arrow of Pure Love struck me there and then in the presence with Dadiji in an October evening in Mt Abu. I was simply mersmerised. My fellow travellers noticed through my body language, my facial expression - they noticed that I just become "different". I knew for sure I felt different. I experienced LOVE.

(Dadiji was close to ninety years of age, she was angelic in appearance. She had been a yogi for many decades and co-led the organization since 1969.)

Nothing Is Coincidental

Before, I never even thought about it. Now, I truely believe that everything is guided by a Greater Force. Everything - every millisecond is accurately orchestrated.

It is unbelievable how when one is ready to receive (of course you first got to seek, then wait then receive ... you need to patiently wait because otherwise in impatience you won't even realise what you seek is there and waiting for you!) ok, pause ... just chew on this first ... it is my recent realization.

Yuppie Turn Yogi

The Yuppie "I" Went To Mt Abu To Seek Happiness And I Found It There.

The power of attraction - it must be. We were separated into groups of about 20 to 25 person according to the country we came from. Each group was named with a virtue. The group I was in was named "Happiness".

I must admit, back then in 2005, I was still very much a yuppie. I could not appreciate many things I have now. Neither have I truely experience some intangible virtues such as happiness (the kind that lasts for more than a few hours - yes, I was quite pathetic back then), love and definitely not peace. I could only mostly appreciate tangible things - material things. The intangibles simply eludes me.

When I was into my first day at Mt Abu - we stayed at this retreat called Gyan Sayrovar, I wonder how I was going to "survive" through the 2 weeks - I must clarify that the retreat was comfortable but there was no any form of my standard "entertainment"; I went alone and not crowded by my usual "gang". The hosts were all dressed in whites. There were several sessions of talks per day which under "standard" circumstances I would have stood up and leave or simply dozed off. But, it was a situation when the student was ready, the teacher appeared. I actually enjoyed every session of the talks - except the first day when I was just too exhausted from the journey. The talks were mostly about intangibles...words of wisdom from yogi who had experienced and walked their talks. All I felt was their passion for passing on the wisdom because whatever they had attained had benefited them and those around them. It was a twist for me because I never knew what I was missing out all these while chasing after my "material" rainbow. Seems like the promised pot of gold at the end of my rainbow will never be the same again.

The group activities had been workshops. Somehow, the group facilitator was "entertaining" enough that I too enjoyed it. She actually played some nice music that I normally also enjoyed - not the pop kind of music at the peace retreat (of course) but the new age - "spaced-out" type. She was quite close to my age too so I felt "connected". I found out later that she had been a yogi for more than 20 years and had lived in various parts of the world. She spoke impeccable English as she was a Londoner. We did some harta yoga exercises at the workshop which I really enjoyed and helped me gain a sense of peace and a sense of inner control which I had not felt for many years.

That was the third day and I started to look forward to each day's activities. This was a case where looking back, was predestined and aligned with the Celestine Prophecy. Nothing was coincidental although they just seem so.

There's An Old Saying, When The Student Is Ready The Teacher Appears.

Looking back in 2002: I had a little windfall from a project I worked hard at and with that win, I bought myself a brand new SUV - bright yellow it was - absolutely outstanding! I only had a moment of happiness then back to a void within me that was all too familiar. That was when I started my journey of active search.

I must have searched on and off for close to three years and in Oct 2005, in a mountain - Mt. Abu - in Northern State of Rajasthan, I finally found what I seek only to realise now that this is the begining of true living...and true being. It was very much an Ah-Ha! for me. The love I felt at the gathering - little that I knew back then that it was a spiritual gathering. Little that I realise that I was fortunate to be amongst a group of very stable-minded yogi. That was also a period of my life when I was near burnt-out. I remembered I was invited to Peace of Mind Retreat organised by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. I did not had much time in my preparation as I just decided to accept the invitation and decided to just go with the flow of things.

Hours before I took off my journey from Kuching, I picked up the Celestine Prophecy as it was I thought at that time a book most apt for a journey to Mt Abu. Yes, that was the begining of a series of amazing happening in my life that I can only reason it as it has got to do with a Greater Force. I simply got so spell-bound with the Celestine Prophecy that I began to live the book in my journey to Mt Abu and my stay there. The essence of it was whoever you meet - there's a reason to it. I simply live the moment and let the moment come to me and go with the flow. It was magical! They often says it's magical Mt Abu. Yes it is. Years of yoga by yogi who practice purity simply purifies the atmosphere there.

This was the begining of my journey from a yuppie to a yogi.