Game changer

I last wrote here in September 2017 and little did I know my life as I knew it was soon about to change.

Gradually, I will get to all the different things that have changed. But for now, I will tell you why I am writing here and the ‘game changer’ for me.

You see at a recent meditation retreat someone told me they read this blog and to be honest I felt alarmed because I wasn’t even sure if it represented the person I am now.

Thinking back to this time, I was immersing myself in all sorts of supposedly spiritual things, healing things, weird and far out things and things that promised me happiness. I listened to people and read books of people who claimed to be gurus but there were always gaps that couldn’t quite answer my questions.  Everyone is happy to give you ‘their truth’. Yes, they were good and satisfied me for a while, but they weren’t quite ‘it’ for me. They didn’t seem to give me what I was seeking.

Recently I was speaking to someone about all the things I had tried, and they asked, “what were you looking for?” My honest answer was “I don’t know”. There was just something missing. Have you ever felt like that?

So, in 2018, I saw a sign about a free meditation class at a yoga studio near where we were renting. I attended it and it was kirtan, which is singing or chanting of sacred mantras, and it was really lovely. A while later, at a totally different yoga studio I went to another free meditation event and hadn’t realised but it was another kirtan event by the same lovely couple. This time they got my details and invited me to an event at their home for kirtan. I went and really enjoyed it and then covid hit so I continued watching them online.

During this time sadly my mind was racing all over the place. I was having trouble sleeping, had to resign from work as my mobility was deteriorating and so I decided to go away to a beautiful place for the weekend to ‘treat myself’. I was desperately looking for some rest from the turmoil of life. But guess what, my mind came too. After not being able to sleep and overwhelmed with fear, I knelt on the floor next to this beautiful big bed and prayed – I said, “I can’t work this out on my own, I need Your help”.

I can’t really explain it, but this was my cry for help and when things really began to change

That very weekend as the covid restrictions eased I was able to go back to kirtan mantra meditation. I heard a wisdom talk, chanted and I went home and simply wrote in my journal:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare;
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

I refer to this moment  as the ‘game changer’ because this was when I decided to take the chanting of these mantra’s more seriously and decided to really give this a go. I can’t really explain it but the yogic philosophy intrigued me even though I didn’t really know what ‘this’ really was. So, each week I went to kirtan and rested in these transcendental sounds and haven’t stopped.

From this point my life changed!