The Awakening Slave

'I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free'.

The Awakening Slave (1525-30), Michelangelo Buonarroti.

I feel like my life has been like that, each period of flux carving another part to me; something that was always there, but just not visible.

And my relationship with the ONE who knows me, wants the best for me, and is already able to predict my every wish and desire, is providing me with those experiences that can unlock the magic within me.

Good, bad, happiness, sorrow, these are all states of emotions that are changeable with the tides of life. And we spend all of our time to try and perfect the circumstances in the world in which we live; and so little time finding that resting place within ourselves where that peace resides.

When Inge visits her mother's grave after falling pregnant in her new relationship with David (The Glass Inferno, by Angelika Fremd) she says:

"Mutti, I just want to know if you ever loved me?" as Inge had never felt loved or validated whilst she was alive.

And her mother answers:
"My daughter, have you come to take me away from here? I am turning to stone.....come and hold me, I don't want to be stone."

A heartwarming dialogue between mother and daughter that was too late. Inge spent much of the first part of her life feeling 'soiled, stained, and dirty' ...always feeling in the 'wrong place, wrong time, with total strangers'. And the first time that she experienced her sense of self was through her sexuality.

At the end of her novel the author portrays Inge as having understood how her life as a refugee from Nazi Germany deprived her of that simple validation and recognition of being a beautiful young girl whose right it was to grow into a well-loved and attractive young woman.

When I re-read the novel 'The Glass Inferno' recently, I was touched very deeply with this universal truth that all of us need that love and warmth to grow and blossom. And yet the flavours of relationships change their tastes, and nothing is stable and reliable. And so we come to the dilemna: 'Is there something that can offer us this love?'

When I was a child, I remember playing on the streets of Amsterdam, and feeling there was no separation between me and the GOD or CREATOR I imagined. I would often talk to him/her...I felt very blessed in my life. I loved my parents, loved my School and loved to learn, and had lots of friends. I always felt hopeful.

But there was one murmur, one wound that I never seemed to be able to heal; I couldn't bear being separated from my mother. Like there just wasn't enough love available to satisfy me. And I would cry and cry if she had left me alone for too long, and she would have to be disrupted in what she was doing and come home. l

And yet I remember her as such a loving mother.

Inge comments at the end of the novel:
"When the thirst, the passion, for peace, is understood . . . that is the only time that human beings can start to recognize each other as who we are. It is about being alive. You think being alive is to walk? No! Being alive is that person who has an understanding, a passion, for peace."
 
"You need to feel good every single day. Every single hour. Actually - every single minute. In fact, whenever you don't feel good, it doesn't work for you. I have never heard anybody say 'I am bored feeling good - I wish I could feel miserable"

"In my absence I flow and there is peace. The 'I am' has dissolved into 'AM I' 

"And for the first time I understand that I have never seen myself more truly than in recognizing the shape of my own face. I have seen Inge's underworld. Underworld mirrors narrated her journey."

When we moved to Australia (I was nearly 12yrs of age) our life-style became different and I can't remember feeling that lack. I started to attend a Ballet School, Lisner's Ballet Academy, and through dance I was totally absorbed into the world of myths and legends, where mostly all stories ended in happy outcomes! Where reality and dreams were intertwined, and much of the real world seemed out of my reach.

A time came when I was tested to enter the world of adulthood, responsibility, relationship and motherhood, without the support of my parents, and it felt like I lived in an alien world. There was no-one to provide me with a map, no sense of direction, just floating from one experience to another without a real compass.

When I met with my teacher Prem Rawat over 33 years ago I felt that finally my heart had found a home, an anchor. That it replaced my sense of isolation, of being neglected, of not being validated. And it has taken all this time to fulfill this journey, to see it's path, to place it at the center of my life, and then gather the joy of sharing it with others.

But most of all, my connection with my teacher has showed me that learning never stops, humility is the best friend, and peace is not the absence of an argument. That there is such a thirst to evolve, to grow, to just be. To touch the divine, to feel that contentment, something that can't be created in the outer world, but must have its birth within me. It's like every day I have to bring it into my life, choose consciousness, love peace. And then the ups and downs, the calm and stormy waves of one's life can be viewed as a moving landscape whose only purpose is to carve a map onto the road of life to lead us to our true self.

Like a mirror that reflects all of my outer impediments but also my inner beauty.

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