Spirituality - the Power of Transformation

Human life is precious in may ways. But most importantly, because it is the only way one can manifest the divinity within. How does one manifest? By dissolving the clouds of ignorance and delusion that shrouds the bright core within. Here are two women who are attempting to understand the difference between the True Divine Self and the False Self which is what we identify with.

From Model to Spiritual Aspirant
My friend Aarti found herself transformed by her spiritual quest. She didn't always believe that enlightenment is the purpose of life. In her days as a model, she would party every night and was the belle of every ball. She believed that she was truly happy. Male adulation made her feel all powerful. Her job too as a copywriter was pretty satisfying. She had turned out some successful copy and this too made her believe that she was happy. But she was only in her early twenties then and as she grew older, she began to spend more nights at home and in this quiet time, began to realize that there was something missing.

When she got married, she travelled to Hong Kong on her honeymoon and they landed up at the Po Lin Monastery on a nearby island where the film 'Enter the Dragon' had been filmed. In the massive courtyard outside the great prayer hall, she saw the huge urn filled with incense, the thick blue smoke rising like a prayer, and when she stepped inside she was enveloped in a tranquility she did not know existed. Her doting father had at times taken her to a temple or two and asked her to fold her hands in prayer, but she had always felt false doing it.

But this was different. A tall golden Buddha sat before her, his beautiful face filled with benevolence and at his feet all around him chanted the monks. Their chants reverberated deep inside her and suffused her with an emotion that was utterly new to her. It was her awakening.
When an old woman dressed in maroon robes, her head shaved, smiled at her as she fingered her holy beads, Aarti felt that she was being chosen for a whole new spiritual experience.

Since then, Aarti has discovered the value of prayer and ahimsa that has turned her into a vegetarian and enriched her life. It has made her view all success with a new detachment.

It is a spiritual law: the more you run after something, the more it runs away from you.

A Nun with a Past

Gloria G a 30 year old Buddhist nun, ordained 12 years ago, had her first boyfriend at age 12. She continued to have many more till she was 18 when a near-fatal accident changed her life radically and caused her to dedicate her life to the spiritual quest.

"I had a really wild life," she says. "My parents, especially my father were always worried about my nights out and my love for riding bikes. I used to scorn all that was religious or spiritual. But when I had that terrible accident, everyone was shocked that I had survived the horrible crash. I had an out-of-the-body experience. I found myself outside my body and looking down at it and realized that there was more to life than the body, that there was indeed a soul! I realized that I had been really bad and that I had to get back to my body and be good to make up for all that.

My first year as a nun was difficult after my wild days, but for the first time I felt that I was
needed, that people needed my help. I suddenly found the meaning of my life. I found true love and I no longer wanted to look for it in the wrong places. Now when I look at men, I see them not as the opposite sex, but as fellow souls."

Listening to Gloria's words, I recalled a saying much meditated upon by reiki practitioners: "We are spiritual beings in physical bodies."

Listening to Gloria's words, I recalled a saying much meditated upon by reiki practitioners: "We are spiritual beings in physical bodies."

It seems to me that only when one knows black, can one know white. Shades of Saint Augustine, and Milarepa, two men who gave up a hedonistic lifestyle for the spiritual quest. That is why they say sinners have a future and saints, a past.